Again, it seems that a lot of people have the idea that heavy RP means heavy skill. Is it a rule that you have to roll a di or you can't do anything that matters...This seems to be an issue more with the general mindset of most(not all just most) GMs than an issue with the system. Especially in combat, if we allowed more outside the box thinking in combat, I think that would lessen the need to be min/maxed. Players can have the mindset of "yea my strength isnt quite has high as I want but i can make up for it through creative smart play". This idea is shot down at almost every table(again almost not all).
It seems to me that if an action would solve a problem, or give a bonus numeric value to any roll or stat, you better have a skill or attack roll for that action. I get that it is meant to balance the game, but it has a tendency to turn Pathfinder in just a very complex game of chess once combat starts(which is always in a lot of scenarios)
I don't really think that the core of this problem is roleplay or social heavy scenarios vs. combat heavy scenaros. In my opinion, it has nothing to with how much of either is in a scenario but with how much more work it is for the GM to stick to one or the other.
I agree that at times it really feels like the rules for Pathfinder really encourage you to kill everything. For example it's a standard action to smack the down on his luck thief with your sword and kill him, but lets look at some no murdery ways to stop him
1.Deal non lethal damage(still basically combat tho) but that imposes a -4 penalty.
2. Diplomancy check, takes one minute...so basically 10 rounds, making it forever useless
3.Subdue him, well u better take the action to get out manacles or rope, grapple than pin him...that takes quite a few rounds
It is mechanically simpler for the GM to just make you kill him, and has a higher chance of success than any none psychotic action would. I played a few co,bat heavy scenarios and was begging for a heavy roleplay one, after playing Severing Ties I wish I never had. Its more work for a GM to fly by his pants and allow creative thinking, saying no just make a roll is easier. Heavy roleplay scenarios dont require you to role play at all, they just require you to have optimized skills, which is still rollplay. For example, in PFS say two players wish to use Diplomancy to convince an NPC of something. Player 1 gives a wonderful, flavorful speech and presents amazing arguments as to why NPC should, and rolls a 12, failure. Player 2 says "I roll di good, agree me with yes?" gets a 20, success. RP isn't supported in PFS. And yes I'm aware that maybe some GM's can be creative and make their tables amazing, but that is a maybe where as being really good at rolling(skills or combat) is going to be better at 100% of tables as its the rules.
Thanks a lot for the advice, Gnoams your post really help to reassure nothing to crazy is gonna happen, tho I agree, less creativity is sad, makes sense why that happens tho..time issues, RAW only and all that stuff, not the GMs fault. I think I may try some PFS GMing sometime soon, especially if I find a scenario or two I really like and would love to run. I'm checking out the GM resources now, lots of great stuff for sure
Wixirox the PFS Gming as as a whole been much better than the homebrew Gming...a big reason being that if you do the massively stupid wacky things some homebrew GMs do, you won't be gming in PFS for long, which is a good thing. I guess my hold up is while there is major incentive to not GM poorly, there isnt as much built into the PFS rulebook to go from being average to better or great. I don't fully understand the star system but is seems mostly(repeat mostly not entirely) based on number of scenarios ran, not as much how well you ran them.
I would love to see maybe some GMing classes or videos or something offered at some of the venues that routinely host PFS, not because its needed but because it should be wanted...i would love to be a better GM, i would love to learn from the best, to be the best, and i hope everyone else gets to be the best one day to.
The thing is I look at it like this. GMing is plain and simple more difficult than playing a character, many times more IMHO. And since PFS is linked so closely to Paizo and Pathfinder, since for many its their first exposure to Pathfinder or even tabletop gaming in general...there is a vested interest in having the GM, the person who decides more than anyone else how much fun a session will be, be the best possible. There is a line that is good enough, but everyone should want to get better yes?
Let me preface this with a little back story. I'm 20 and for the last probably 6 years have done nothing outside of PFS other than GM, everything from 3.5/Pathfinder to Vampire and Unknown Armies. I've been gaming for about 9 years. The main appeal of PFS for me was that I finally got to play a character, any character i want(within the legal rules)! Holy cow I was happy. But I do have a few issues that I think stop me from fully enjoying my Society experience, so I have come for advice.
Now in the 6 years i spent pretty much exclusively Gming I did try to sit in on many other GMs games, especially for 3.5 and Pathfinder. I always couldn't wait to leave by the end, and never went back to most of them. I had one GM do an amazing job but that was for a percentile based modern system and this GM(who is also an amazing novelist) now writes frequently for Paizo and other 3PP groups. My first ever DM, when I learned to tabletop when I was young, was a man I was later told(after we had lost contact) had written decent amounts for 3.5, I believe mostly to do with the Eberron setting. So I am fully aware that I was very GM-spoiled as a player on the few occasions I got to be one. As a result, I have very high standards for what a GM should do, and I understand that fault lies with me. This whole post isn't about bad GMs but instead about my inability to enjoy normal "average" GMing.
The main reason I post this on the Society page is that all of my Pathfinder as been PFS since I moved to the Carbondale area and with how its set up, if i wanna play, I don't get to pick GM or anything, I have to deal with it and move on. Now that being said, the people that GM for my local venue are pretty good, especially compared to some of the trainwrecks I have witnessed outside of PFS. The following are things I've seen in games I've visited, and these GMs still managed to have players(at least for a few sessions)
1.Having 15th level NPCs running around in a combat role with 3rd level PCs
2.A play group with 12 players...TWELVE!!!!
3.Many many times, a lightning bolt blasts you all die no save, or your teleported here, caster level a million, nothing u can do about it(this GM tp was the only way the party ever traveled and it was never the PCS idea).
4.Female players treated like any PC they made was a hooker/bar wench by default
5.The quote "I refuse to ever kill a PC, if the dice would force me to I just reroll, no one goes below zero in my games...dying isnt part of tabletop" Me-"so what are the hitpoints for?"
6. and many more
But that is just the worst, and none of it has been in PFS, sometimes I run into decent GMing and I just feel like something is missing. I have grown a set of expectations over time for what a GM should and shouldn't do over time(mostly from my own experience GMing) and I would love feed back on which ones are just asking to much.
1.Don't softball me, please...kill my PC fairly I'll smile and thank you...softball me and you are ruining my day
2.Have a pretty good understanding of the rules, you don't have to be a master...but if you're having to go to the combat section of the CRB every encounter...maybe you aren't ready to GM
3.Please don't hand wave intro or story(in PFS replace intro with the part where we get the mission and travel) I understand if you want to get it out of the way quickly, but I should NEVER draw my weapon for combat without understanding as a player why we are fighting
4.Reward creativity...if it makes sense that it would work. Maybe you assign a roll to it for a creative fix than have em roll, but there is never only one solution to a problem
5. Role Play the NPCs to some extent, they exist in the world just like PCs, they have lives and desires, fears and flaws etc etc, this isn't a video game where the shopkeep has 3 programmed phrases
6. Do some prep work with the maps, know what the combat maps look like, or better yet print em out..that means objects need to be drawn on or mentioned in your description, not every fight is in an empty field or bare room
7.Its a pet peeve of mine when someone plays a 7 Int fighter as a PC with perfect tactics, then a 18 Int 18 Wis villain NPC with bad ones, there is some belief in a lot of people minds it seems that monsters or NPCs shouldn't use high level tactics(combat maneuver, coup de grace, flanking, using the environment etc) even when the character has the stats to do it, I understand scenarios come with tactics but those tactics not working should count as "invalidated by the PCs"
8.Morality isn't as black and white as people would think. All lawful good characters aren't the same, that goes for CN and LE and CE as well. I highly suggest to new gms that they read the what is evil/playing evil chapter of the BOVD and the playing good chapter of the BOED(both from 3.5)
I'm sorry for the really long post, and am aware I'm probably insane for expecting all this from someone. So my main reason for posting is to get advice about how to change seeing GMs this way, thanks for taking the time to read all this rant.
So I played a PFS session a week or so ago and feel inclined to share a bit of the story. I will be avoiding all spoilers if possible
We were playing Perils of the Pirate Pact, and a certain encounter was played using the wrong stats/wrong rules just overall not RAW at all, it took forever and we didn't finish in the time slot, we didn't get Prestige and I burnt through a ton of charges on my CLW wand. Here is the thing though, all of this is unimportant...IT DIDN'T MATTER TO ME.
What sticks out in this session, what I will remember, is that I had a ton of stinking fun playing this session, I was laughing at my own and other players jokes almost constantly, Everyone had moments where they felt like the most important guy, everyone had moments when they knew they weren't...I will most likely talk to the GM about the RAW issues to make sure it isn't an issue in future sessions, but i will for certain be informing them that it was some of the most fun I've ever had with PF and is the best time I've had out of 5 PFS sessions.
So I'm new to my PFS group I play with and overall am very happy that i joined, its been quite fun, but an odd situation occurred that has me wondering what to do. We were playing through Perils of the Pirate Pact on the 3-4 tier with a relatively new GM and so questionable calls were made, I actually had a lot of fun playing it and laughed a lot, but the calls made a certain encounter take over 2 hours and I fear may have been the reason we didn't finish the scenario and didn't get any Prestige.
Spoiler:
1)It says in the scenario(I read it afterward) that the spiders have 22 HP, but when we fought them it seemed they had near 40.
2)Is it possible to be triple or quadruple webbed and have the effects stack?
3)We didn't have any large minis so the the GM made them medium but didn't make the stat changes
4)Since the Web attack is a ranged attack, does it provoke if in threatened squares?
5)We had a 4th lvl paladin with great Fort saves, no one at the table could remember him failing a Fort save(myself and him included) against the poison, but the GM insisted he had.
6)It doesn't list the webs having DR or anything but it was played that they did, and the webs already in the environment and especially the one they shot for free at the ladder were basically indestructible, this seems odd to me.
7)The explosive crated never went boom, and burning hands was cast...a looot, and wouldn't the burning hands, if cast through a PC's square who was webbed(with that players permission) hit ever instance of the web seperately as an AoE spell? Like if a character was Quadruple webbed the burning hand would damage each of the 4 webs not just one?
Now I understand the GM is newer to GMing and I don't want to make them think I'm upset with them or that i didn't have fun. It was a bundle of laughs and I had a great time, but I'm concerned that if these mistakes or rules oversights or tendency to change the written scenario aren't ever addressed that it may be a slippery slope, please share any advice you have
As a player i tend to dislike a scenario the most when I feel railroaded, if i feel that my actions dont matter and a certain result must play out no matter what, I will be unsatisfied. As far as challenging or tough scenarios go, i prefer tough scenarios. But tough and frustrating are very different things. An encounter requiring smart tactics, intense teamwork and a well thought out approach are fun and amazing, an encounter that requires you have a specific item(a certain oil or scroll or "this counters this item") isnt fun, its just testing to make sure you bought stuff.
The story plot holes bug me sometimes, especially ones where the party is forced to make choices that just don't make sense, or when NPCs do things that are just down right not how people act. I get that I'm a pathfinder and serving a greater organization but I still find myself going "why in the world do i care about doing X or saving Y or stopping Z' especially if the society can get what it wants without all that trouble.
Great points guys, Again my only worry is that disallowing a full rebuild sorta feels like claiming badwrongfun to me. If you select a feat or trait or anything you are accepting it as is for your character, not as it could be later. Say they change dodge(the feat) to give plus 20 AC(crazy i know but bear with) yes its better, but its NOT what i selected for the character, it may not fit the image i have of my character, and feels little different than a GM or another player demanding i use a option for my character i didn't agree to select. The issue i have is that better or worse, rebuild "abuse" or not, you have complete control over what you select for your character, errata removes that control any could change my character conceptually even if the only difference is i feel it being different, at the core players craft characters with love and connection, its of primary importance that nothing but the player(as long as they follow legal rules) decide how much they love their creation
And as for they issue reason about "what if I select a feat i know may be on the chopping block as that when errata occurs i can rebuild?" Simply put, I don't care. There is no such thing as a sorta legal option, a feat or trait or whatever is legal until it isn't legal. There is no "not really legal now because there is a good chance it isn't later" column for anything. Thanks again for the great input guys!
Just played the scenario and loved it, i repeat it was my most enjoyable session of the 4 i have played in. Lots of laugh and tough, challenging combats(I LOVE HARD MODE) but did any other group find it impossible to finish in the 4 hour slot? My group wasnt even half way through it at 4 hours, granted a certain combat in the belly of a river barge to waaaaaay longer than expected. I loved it and would love to play it again for no credit, but curious about the run time
So I've read a lot of threads lately about the issue of character rebuilds after errata, especially regarding the Crane Wing fiasco. While I've heard great arguments either way there was one thought that came to mind that I didn't come up on any threads that I feel obligated to now share. I support free and complete character rebuild ONCE after anytime an errata not related to equipment(which you should simply be allowed to sell back at full price) affects your character, no matter how small. This has nothing to do with mechanics or min-maxing but is in fact a matter of roleplaying and principle.
If you have invested in a character that is legal in PFS you have decided to create this being, this unique being that is fully 100% your fantasy. Any errata is forcing a player to either not play their fantasy or pay in game resources to retrain to a character that is of their design. Just as we tell players never to force other players to do/play anything they dont want to, why should the company do that. I am 100% okay with errata as some things are just broken and need fixed, but we should then allow that player to have 100% say in what their fantasy is again, now that the errata took that away from them. Free rebuild whenever is a terrible idea imo but I think a player deserves one after their freedom to decide what there character is becomes removed by errata.
