| Tanath |
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Hello PFS,
I took a break from organized play for college and picked up PFS maybe a little more than a year and a half ago. During my short time in PFS, I've lived in three different cities (career) and been to a decent amount of conventions, and I keep encountering reoccurring themes that are just bothering me...PFS is starting to lose it's luster.
I keep telling myself, "maybe I should quit?" and I keep not wanting to, because the system (both PF and PFS) has so much amazing potential. I am visiting yet another city for work, and signed up for three games during my trip, and I can already tell that it's just more of the same.
I guess I'm asking you to help me here. Show me what I'm doing wrong...show me how I'm wrong...or agree with me and maybe we can find some way to fix this
1. Most players are really, really bad.
I am so sick of 16 strength rangers, bards that sing and do nothing else, and 10 con melee rogues, there is some kind of huge bell-curve; there seem to be a few really decent players, and it's like everyone else makes bad choices on purpose. I've essentially solo'ed or two-manned a scenario more times that I can count.
However, this doesn't stop at stats and numbers. These same decent players are the ones that also get into their character, use different voices, have unique and interesting character concepts, use things like table-tents and pictures to tell a story about who they are. Everyone else (the majority) uses their regular people voices, have completely uninspired character concepts ("I'm a fighter, I have a chain shirt...that's about it") and don't do anything except just act like themselves playing a non-role playing game.
It's not the new players either. I just played three slots at a convention where the only thing standing between a horrific thornekeep TPK on every single encounter were two second level wizards, played myself and an 18 year old teenager who had *never in his entire life played anything resembling a roleplaying game*. We burned through two entire wands of magic missile, because we were evidently the only characters capable of doing any damage to anything.
I finally had to switch out characters in the last part of the module, because the judge (one of the decent guys as described above) strongly hinted that we would be annihilated if we tried to play it as-is. The judge later confided in me that he had actually killed everyone (except me) at least several times and didn't have the heart to ruin the convention for us.
What the hell happened here? It wasn't like this in Living Greyhawk. LFR wasn't even this bad.
2. It's impossible to find one anything higher than 3-7
Every game day everywhere is always the same. 1-5. 3-7 Every time. I've got one character that I've managed to sneak to 10th level, and everyone else is locked under seven. When I find the decent players I was talking about, half the time it's because they are running a game for me or pulling out their hair trying to keep a scene in one piece.
Is it fair to me to have to keep coming up with new characters? Is it fair to me to just have some kind of early retirement? The only time I can ever escape this problem is by going to conventions (where problem 1 and 3 still occur), and as a father and career-minded person, I just can't do this more than a few times a year anyway.
3. You can't ever play up
Pathfinder is incredibly boring when you play down, with a few exceptions. Of course, half the time everyone only has the lowest tier of characters that the scenario can handle (usually 1-5) and the other half of the time, it falls in the middle and people are either "trying to play it safe" or "providing a good experience for the newer players".
Well, what about me? I'm not having fun anymore, and I have just as much right to have fun as anyone else. Is a new person more valuable than me? Should I just quit so it can only be fun for them? I've played up *once* in the past 12 scenarios I've played; when is enough enough?
4. People like me are despised
I am sick of the guilt trip. Yes, I've optimized my character in XYZ fashion. Yes, my character has a high AC, and/or hits really hard, and/or has really high save DCs on their really well thought out spell list. Yes, my character killed the big monster in the first round (that's why I wanted to play up). As a result, people just don't want me at their table, until they are knee-deep in a TPK and I have to save them.
It's not that I'm some kind of incredible prodigy. It's that when you combine problems 1, 2, and 3, you get a party of characters with extremely sub-optimal choices, played by strategically-challenged players, that are 2-3 levels lower than me. *Of course* my seventh level character stole the thunder from a party of 3 and 4th level monks and rogues. How is that my fault?
I get "the look". My math gets checked. I have to bring rules clarifications with me. Judges rule incorrectly against me on simple things on purpose (like "taking 10" on things outside of combat, I mean, seriously?!?)
Why? I'm not ignorant to people. This post here is the *first* time I've ever openly and publicly commented disparagingly about anyone, their character, their choices, or anything. I'm nice, I'm helpful, I'm encouraging. I offer suggestions if they are welcomed, and I don't if they aren't. I'm held accountable because I don't fit into the group of people described in problem 1. That's it. My characters are pretty effective; what a jerk.
5. It's not the geo.
It's everywhere. Each of the three cities I've lived. Every con that I've gone to outside of these cities. The crew that I used to run with has found this in countless cities and conventions all over the country.
Finale:
So, talk me off the ledge, or bid me good riddance. GO!