Search Posts
EDIT: Looking over the turnover, it appears that what is in the guide is what we sent them. But the intent is certainly that the pregen level should equal the sub-tier being played whenever possible. If you do the math, it is impossible for the pregen to play out of sub-tier in a 1-5 or a 3-7 scenario.
Andy, it is because we told them they could do this. Yup, with the understanding that its well within a venture-officer or game-day organizer's purview to do so.
It was in both the Season 4 and Season 7 guides page 31 in Season 4 and page 33 in Season 7. I'm pretty sure Preston, that when our Guide Revision team was making guide revision suggestions, that it was determined that allowing a level 7 and a level 1 to play in the same game was detrimental to the game, and so that the wording of the rule disallows this. That being said, I believe we had created a grid or chart that would have made this abundantly clear, but the chart was really difficult to create without making all kinds of weird columns and rows. So when it went through development it looks like they distilled what we had originally presented into a text statement that was hoped essentially said what the chart tried to convey.
I can confirm that the Guide Revision team specifically made notes to add that to the Season 8 guide to help alleviate any confusion or argument.
I am trying to get ahold of Andrew Christian for a while now, I have sent him PM's on here, does anyone have his email address? I apologize. After stepping down as VC, I haven't been paying much attention. I am on vacation to Ohio through Monday, but will try to remember to look into your PM when I get home.
Some more thoughts: Fallout allows you to pick a track for your character largely based on a morality track and which aspect of the storyline you want to interact with. Each of those tracks has a finite number of choices. Its like a choose your own adventure in a more dynamic way than a book, in which you get to actually interact with the obstacles on a certain level. Table top RPGs allows you to pick a way to interact with the world based on character personality and role. What does your character do to interact with the world? And the world interacts with you. Fallout is limited by the software code options. Finite. But if the end goal is to overcome the obstacles, gain all the badges, and win the game itself, then it can feel like an infinite number of choices because you can use almost any set of skills the game gives you to succeed at the end goal. Indeed you can keep playing the game to follow all of the tracks to earn all of the badges. Table top RPGs are limited by human creativity. Infinite. It may seem like a soul hindering finite list of options because you have a written adventure with written expected outcomes. But each individual obstacle can be overcome in different ways limited only by the creativity and ability to work as a team of the players and the creativity and improvisational skills of the GM. The infinite/finite options in Fallout are about the meta-game. Winning the game in as many ways as possible, or in any way possible that the game offers you to do so. This feels like a boundless set of options, because the game world is really, really HUGE. The ability to do and be anything you want within the scope of the game. Its a sandbox and you get to play with the entire world. The infinite/finite options in table top RPGs are about the individual encounters and the individual scenarios. A home campaign world can be a lot larger and closer to the sandbox paradigm. Whereas PFS is episodic. The infinite choices come in how you deal with each individual encounter on a creative level. A roleplay level. Who is your character and why does he act certain ways? The world is smaller, compressed into a mini-story with an expected outcome. How you get to that expected outcome can be as creative as you, your team (the other players) and the GM can come up with together. Fallout is a solo game. You play it by yourself. You are expected to be able to solve all problems by yourself. Table top RPGs are a team gamme. A cooperative game. You play it with other people. Social interaction is expected. Cooperation is expected. Allowing others to solve or help solve problems is expected. If you solo a table top RPG, you will often find yourself cast as an outsider and unwelcome in many groups.
Chaos ticket, the restrictions and limitations you are seeing areveryone expressing are not unique to PFS or Pathfinder. You are going to find those same sets of restrictions in any table top RPG. I've played darn near all of them, and I've played Fallout 3 and New Vegas for many, many hundreds of hours. You are right when you say a table top RPG is limited in level (20) as compared to Fallout. But PFS is not more limited than Pathfinder, in that you can still get a legal PFS character to 20. 12 has not really been the cap for several years. You are right when you say that table top RPGs are limited in the solo adventure aspect when compared to Fallout. This is a game of cooperation and is a social activity, and thus is a different style of game. I wouldn't really call it a limitation. More that it's straight up a different game. It is possible to create a Pathfinder character that is at least passable, if not awesome at all the things, but then you'd be soloing the game. That's not what table top RPGs are about. Many have already said it, but let me pose a question to you. What's every other player supposed to do for fun while you are soloing? Watch you have fun? Sound like watching paint dry. They want to also experience the things thier characters are good at. You are wrong about the limitation of options to solve problems when compared to Fallout. Fallout often has a single option for many encounters. Kill the enemy. Sure, you can be sneaky, use ranged or melee, and sometimes other methods. But Fallout usually has a hard coded Finite list of ways to solve any problem. These are not limited to what your character can do, but by what the computer code says is possible to do. In Fallout, you solo things and will often choose the option that appeals to you in spite of or maybe because of how good or bad you are at something. In table top RPGS, the ability to solve things in multiple ways is a function of teamwork and a well rounded party. Let the experts do what they are good at when you hit those obstacles and revel in thier success. Your time will come soon, and your teammates will revel in your success. Finally, you can earn money outside a scenario. It's called a day job check. And if you continue to improve your performance, profession, or craft skills, you can start earning hundreds of gold between scenarios. Tl;dr: your problem is not the limitations of table top RPGS, but rather your expectation of a table top RPG to provide the same kind of experience as Fallout. The are fundamentally different games. Primarily one is a solo game with no social interactionsecurity with other living beings. Table top RPGs are mainly a social cooperative game. Think the difference between Monopoly and the cooperative nature of Pandemic.
Would there be room to extend these benefits to charitable conventions? For example, if the whole table just spent $50 on tickets for the charity raffle, could they enjoy the extended benefits? As Tonya mentioned above, this is not meant for conventions, but for retail store support. My main question though, is what if you have a retail convention? I'd imagine it would apply, but some clarification would be good.
I've found that businesses not built for gaming can be great to game in, but while they might handle one table very well, I rarely only organize a single table. If I want to ensure I have 3 to 5 tables that are large enough for a map and everyone's stuff and free, then I need the game store. Besides, we have one of these FFGEC
The ARG isn't going to show the Tien or Senzar languages, because those are Golarion specific languages and the ARG is not Golarion specific (and as such will not include anything Golarion). By that token, it seems that Paizo considers Nagaji a Golarion specific language as well and that in the base game, Nagaji speak Draconic as a racial language. Season 8 guide was changed to read the way it does, so that someone who was an Elf couldn't just say, "Well I'm from Tien, so I also know Tien for free." In other words, you need to be a Tien based race and/or ethnicity to be considered Tien.
The whole room cheered like crazy when TOZ, Wei Ji, Andy Christian and others at 10-11 slew that undead dragon and earned the special dragon condiition. Kudos to them and to their GM, Jeffrey Reed (Fractallaw) Wei Ji played his awesome buffing Bard Rae that nerfed an encounter by having the fantastic idea to cause an enemy combatant to switch sides. TOZ played Kane, his flame oracle, that kept three of us effective by casting unbreakable heart three straight rounds. As the low level on the totem pole, Lord Hellknight Hamish Setwald III totally respects the Hellknight aspirant. Walter Helgason (walterroo) played his Chelish Diva Bard (interestingly enough, I think this made two characters that were actors) and was the other third of our sick buffing team with Kane and Rae. He succeeded in break enchantment to dispell a dominate. Adriano Fruzzetti played a SwashMagus named Orion who was all kinds of awesome. It was fun to see this character truly challenged when he failed to parry 3 times in a row. Dimension door and dimensional dervish for the win. Plus using our 4th dispel magic during spell combat to get rid of an infuriating displacement sealed the deal. Matthew McCloud played a knife master/scout Unchained Rogue named Taelon, who managed the killing blow with opportunist. I played Lord Hellknight Hamish Setwald III and his Moose Arnold. I think I had the distinction of the only one who needed to burn a talisman of life's breath, although Kane came close on the slay living crit. All in all, that was pretty Epic.
Zach, take a look at the policy button on this website. It lists the event support policy, which includes a regional support option. Email Todd Morgan, our RVC, and he can help get support for even game days over a quarter. While that won't help many of your points, that could help filter boons through your player base.
Despite the rudeness of plaidwandering, I have to agree with thier general stance. I fully understand the reasoning behind using setting lore and why it makes sense to help immerse players in that. The verisimilitude broken for a player who knows and built thier character with self-imposed restrictions based on setting lore might get upset when a new person is allowed to do things that feel anathema to those who know. All that being said, if part of the intent for the Core Campaign is to be friendly to new players, you can't then yank the carpet out from under thier feet by enforcing lore on them that you have no right to assume they would know. My vote is that no, you cannot enforce setting lore outside the CRB on someone in the Core Campaign based on what the core Campaign is.
The real question is why is this hypothetical player playing a Cleric of Pharsma since you seem to be implying that he wouldn't know the most prominent feature of said deity? You seem to be confused. The core campaign does not include any info on any deities other than what's in the CRB. So by your opinion, nobody could play a cleric in Core. We have to assume players only have the CRB, and can only make rulings based on that.
Wait the boon that says you get one egg to raise allows you full access? That is a pretty charitable interpretation of that boon.
Did you just purposefully ignore the bolded part? And it doesn't say you get one egg. It says you recover a clutch of eggs and can raise one of the hatchlings as a pet. But it doesn't say you only ever get one. Indeed, the bolded part says that you get to add the owlbear to your list of companions if you could normally take a bear.
This one allows you full access, and not singular access: Owlbear Companion:[b] You recovered a clutch of owlbear eggs and may raise one of the hatchlings as a pet. [b]If you possess a class feature that permits you to take a bear as an animal companion or mount that progresses as an animal companion, you may instead gain the service of an owlbear. The owlbear companion uses the stats of a bear companion with the following modifications: all Handle Animal checks made to train or handle the owlbear suffer a –4 penalty; the bonus granted by the devotion ability increases to +5; the creature’s starting Charisma score is 10; and the animal companion looks like an owlbear instead of a normal bear. This owlbear is considered an animal for all purposes. While this one is definitely a singular only boon: Faerie Dragon Improved Familiar: A caster of at least 7th level with an alignment within one step of chaotic good may bond with the faerie dragon Riddywipple using the Improved Familiar feat. If you make this bond with the creature, you must provide a copy of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 3 as if the improved familiar were available as an Additional Resource. Riddywipple does not specifically say it only allows a singular creature, but Mike Brock clarified that this was a singular use.
No. I know for a fact that you are completely wrong on that part. As to how extensive it is I don't know. I know there are rules and it does vary from scenario to scenario but where they are to hell if I know.Not any. Some add a particular animal or magical beast to your list. If your axebeak dies, you can get another one.Any boon familiar or animal companion has to be resurrected or the boon gets crossed off so yeah to say there is no mechanical benefit is wrong. On top of that too as someone pointed out Drakes are one and done and that is arguably worst than loosing a boon companion.Possibly less actually. If we are currently assuming that most people would just get another companion, anyone wanting to pay PP for the spell is doing so purely for role-play and fluff reasons. I'd personally at least round down to 4, and i'd consider halving the cost, since there is no mechanical benefit. You sure about that? Axe Beak Companion: As long as you have Chronicle sheets for [redacted], you may take an axe beak as a loyal mount or companion; the Chronicle sheets need not be consecutive or in order, but all three must be present in the same character’s records. If you possess a class feature which permits you to take an animal companion or a mount that progresses as an animal companion, you may add the axe beak to your list of legal and available companions. You must present a copy of Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 3 in order to use an axe beak companion as if it were allowed as an additional resource. Other than provide access to this animal as a choice of mount or companion, this boon provides no mechanical benefit. There is no argument to be made that this does not add the Axe Beak to your available list of animals. If the axe beak dies, since it is now on your list of available animals, you can take an axe beak as the next animal. Please don't argue that you know for a fact things work a certain way, when you aren't even sure what the boon actually says.
Any boon familiar or animal companion has to be resurrected or the boon gets crossed off so yeah to say there is no mechanical benefit is wrong. On top of that too as someone pointed out Drakes are one and done and that is arguably worst than loosing a boon companion.Possibly less actually. If we are currently assuming that most people would just get another companion, anyone wanting to pay PP for the spell is doing so purely for role-play and fluff reasons. I'd personally at least round down to 4, and i'd consider halving the cost, since there is no mechanical benefit. Not any. Some add a particular animal or magical beast to your list. If your axebeak dies, you can get another one.
A lot of this information is already included in the tables we create for the various "Year of the ..." pages. Each of the PFS seasons has its own page with a sortable table. Season 0 and Season 1 are called by the numbers (since the "Year of the ..." designation did not start until Year of the Shadow Lodge), but the rest you can search for by their proper names. I had not seen these charts previously. They do half of what i asked for above. But adding another column and listing who the VC is for that scenario would be excellent.
Things that would be really helpful:
Any other lists you or others could think of that would help a GM tie together a comprehensive storyline for players and characters. So making sure all scenario references in these lists also shows the Tier.
Let's use my running of Dragon's Demand as an example. This was the last thing I ran at Village games. We ran it in two marathon 13 horse sessions. I wish it had taken one more day, as it was very rushed. In any case, the text above from season 7 guide, would be if part 1 (as defined by the sanctioning document) were started by 6 players, but by my estimation they only played a portion equal to 1/3rd, 2/3rd or more than 2/3rds. And they would get 1XP/2PP, 2XP/3PP, or 3XP/4PP respectively. So players, A, B, C, D, E, and F. A through D play all of all 3 parts. Get full credit and all 4 chronicles. E plays only 2/3rds of part 1, so gets a part 1 chronicle worth 2 XP and 3PP. F plays all of part 1, but nothing else. So gets a chronicle for part 1 at 3XP and 4 PP. G and H step in for E and F. G plays part 2 and 3 and gets full credit for both. H plays 1/3rd of Part 2, and gets 1 XP and 2 PP part 2 chronicle. J steps in for H. In campaign mode you can fit him in right after H leaves. But because in PFS play mode, each chronicle represents a discrete module, J could not start play until part 3 starts. Do not worry if this mixing and matching might cause a session to need more than 7 players or less than 3, if you are playing campaign mode. Does that help?
Adding in a circumstance penalty is perfectly acceptable. Deciding that circumstance happens if aiding fails by 5 or more is not adding a rule. It's using the rule that allows a GM to add a bonus or penalty based on the circumstances. That being said, aid another is not the role itself, and should not be held to the same standards, except that you cannot aid if you could not make the role on your own.
I like folks to at least tell me what they are trying to do to aid. I get that not all people like to interact socially in that fashion. So merely saying, "I wanna say something witty that will make the guy laugh and maybe bring his guard down a bit." Perfectly acceptable. You are telling me what you are trying to do, and what your goal is. Sometimes, though, when we have a time crunch situation, going around the table and getting every person who's aiding's statement can be a place where you can cut a corner and save some time. I've done that as well too. Just let them roll.
...wonderful in that it prevents minors from attending...If one's lodge only organizes public games in such venues, that could prove problematic. Minors will be the future of the hobby. Most, if not all, of us probably began playing as minors. I'm not singling out Murdock or Murdock's lodge, but addressing anyone and any lodge who holds public events in venues that restrict attendance. Anyone with a desire to play should have access. That's not to say some events couldn't be held in such venues; I'd just caution against all events being held there. I can't agree with any of that. Kids are playing with thier parents constantly, and are excited to do so. Indeed they bring thier friends to play instead of leaving the game to play with thier friends. The game has lasted since the 70's in some form, and so there is no reason to believe some form won't exist 40+ years from now. Organized play has existed in some form since the early 90's. No reason to believe some form wont exist 25+ years from now. Your opinion on children and this game is not actually born out in practical application.
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation. This may be so, but posting something that is akin to chastising those trying to get insight and advice on how to make their small area gaming community thrive is probably not very helpful, insightful, warranted, or wanted.
while MN is a thriving community, and quite large, when I first became a VL, I started a game in Anoka, MN. its about a 35 minute drive NW of the cities, but most people in the cities think its hours and hours away for some reason. Its funny, they will drive to Brooklyn Park or St. Louis Park during rush hour, from across town (an hour or two drive sometimes) but won't go to Anoka on the weekend when its at most a 40 minute drive. I tried getting a double header going on up there. Because the cross pollination with the rest of the Twin Cities was barely alive, I really struggled to keep that game day going. Some of it had to do with the antagonistic attitude of the owners of the store, the lack of food options, and the lack of the store allowing any outside food in but having no real food available for purchase. And it was the only game day that charged a fee to attend. The store had a membership that allowed you to stay 1 hour after closing. And with a double header on Saturday, we needed to stay that late to get a module or two scenarios done. So part of the fee was a day pass for that membership. And when the ownership changed it was all given back in concessions tokens which you could use to buy pop, candy, chips or other concessions. But that turned folks off. Interestingly enough, three of the regulars that would show up at Village Games in Anoka, do not show up for games at other stores and are basically no longer active members in our community. So I think, while I had a fall-back (run games closer to the inner belt of the Twin Cities) I do have some insight to what its like to run games in a smaller community and some insight to the frustrations that ensue. I think a large reason why that game day essentially folded and failed, was because the store was not friendly toward us. Did not advertise for us. Did nothing to help us at all. Had prohibitive hours and prohibitive rules and were absolutely not willing to bend at all for us. Every single other game store in the area has been able to accommodate our needs, except that one. I don't know what I should or could have done differently to really keep that game day going, except perhaps to put more effort into advertising. But I'd grown exhausted going up there even just once a month. So I handed it off to a store coordinator and opened up a game day at a store 5 minutes from where I live. Eventually the relationship between the store and our community fizzled as people stopped showing up. I feel your pain. And I'm not 100% sure what to do to solve these types of issues. All I can do is help brainstorm at this point.
Oh, absolutely. And all the suggestions I'm making are not with an eye for saying, "Just do more work," or, "Build it and they will come." There is a time where the area you are in is saturated. That being said, all the suggestions to help smaller areas, are suggestions that may help them reach that saturation if they are not already there. If they are already there, then trying their best to make things work is about all you can hope for. We can go over the best practices to ensure that folks get to play things to keep your veterans and help the new folks. The session tracker is one that I'm seeing work to play the Geek Sudoku weeks before the game day, so that the lesser run scenarios get to see the light of day, and entice the veterans back to play at those tables.
I don't think you should forget about core in the smaller regions. Its just until you get a stable 2 tables a game day and start venturing into a 3rd, you should most likely choose All Core or All Regular until you can support both reasonably.
|
