Bob King's page

Timothy Thomas wrote:

- the room was very very noisy -- at times we simply could not hear the GM

Then don't play at Cons. That's nothing Paizo can do, fix, or should concern themselves with.

I disagree. Quite often there are one or two tables that end up being "more rambunctious" than the others. Then those around them have to start talking louder to be heard and it spreads around the room.

Eventually, everyone suffers because of it.

I've personally gotten up and walked over to tables before and politely reminded them that they are not the only ones playing in the room.

What could Paizo, or any campaign organizer, do about it?

They could walk around the room and look for tables where the players are talking above "normal conversational" levels. Remind those folks that there's four or five other tables within six feet of them in different directions and they are hindering their enjoyment of the game.

I recognize they may not have the additional staff to dedicate one or more to be noise monitors. Considering the number of tables that were playing the PFS room at GenCon, it certainly could have warranted one or two volunteer positions to help keep the noise down.

Also, perhaps a general reminder at the beginning that the acoustics are bad and players should attempt to use "table voices". I was very disappointed in the etiquette of the room as a whole. The couple of times that Josh used the bullhorn to try and get everyone's attention to put out information, nearly half the room continued talking and going about their business.

There are players that equate RP with volume, which is just a poor excuse for a lack of imagination.

Clint Eastwood didn't scream out at the top of his lungs GO AHEAD KID, MAKE MY DAY!, he nearly whispered it.

I have heard from a more than a few people here that Wizards has abandoned their fans with 4e.

This entire question is very analogous to what Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) did with Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).

Note quite two years into they decided they wanted to get a bigger market share (of online gamers). So they completely redesigned the game, in search of a different demographic, and in the process they completely alienated a large segment of their existing customer base.

WOTC has done the same thing. They started down this path with the decision to cancel Dragon & Dungeon Magazines. Then continued with the manner in which they handled the release of 4E, including the abrupt announcement at Gen Con, termination of Living Greyhawk, etc.

My $$ and support will go to companies like Paizo (and others) that communicate with their customers and show some loyalty back to those that fork over hard earned money for their product.

For me, this has very little to do with comparisons of rulesets. It's more about respect for customers and considering EXISTING customers as part of the business model.

Not sure if this fits your query, but I'm running a game at Origns called "Tooks in the Wire" that will be using the Pathfinder RPG rules.
It's certainly NOT part of Pathfinder Society, and not even set in the Pathfinder universe, but will be using the rules.

Cool - on Thursday I signed my son and I up for your event. I did not know much about it, but chose it mostly because it had Pathfinder in the name. :)

"What if people switched to a four day work week?"

In some sectors the option of four "tens" is an attractive option.

Even if the business open five days, they just stagger who is there Mon-Thu and who comes in Tue-Fri.

In order for it to work, there does have to be trust and redundancy.

I'm retired Navy and have several friends that work in the power plant industry. Most of them work 12 hour shifts, four days at a time, and then have 3 or 4 days off.

I'm sure somewhere up above this was probably mentioned, but there's also telecommuting. It's not an option for everyone, but even if it was one day a week, it helps some.

The other thing is most businesses are still stuck in the industrial age mindset of thinking of work weeks in terms of hours. Why not productivity? or objectives or milestones?

Nothing frustrates me as much as being "more efficient" than my co-workers but having to stick around the office because the time clock has not hit 8 hours yet.

Granted, some industries (service specifically) have to be hours oriented. The bank teller can't go home because he's served 100 customers, for example.

As others have said - it's supply AND demand. It's not just about increasing supply, we can also lower demand.

One person choosing to carpool would not do that, but a whole bunch of people doing so, across the nation, could make an impact.

But there's another thing that gets me - all these folks talking about switching to hybrids or electric cars.

They still have to be recharged. That electricity, for the most part in the U.S., comes from plants dependent upon fossil fuels.

Granted, they are most likely much more efficient, but it's still a "demand" - we need to invest in known current alternatives (i.e. Nuclear Power) as well as investigating alternatives.

Talking about the worst part of the job:

Vic - sorting the spam folder

Try using gmail as a "filter" - it works wonders.

Gmail (www.gmail.com) has about the best spam filtering I have seen. Very little gets through to clog up your inbox.

Perhaps we should start a new thread about alternative sources of energy?

I'm inclined to respond so the last couple of posts, but they have taken quite a tangent from the original topic.

At the risk of offering unsolicited advice...

I spent close to 21 years in the Navy and often had similar periods between duty stations, without an address, etc.

During those times, I found it useful to change my address to my parents or my in-laws house. That was often better than having it held or possibly misdirected.

Perhaps there is a relative or very close friend you could have them sent to? someone you know you'll see in the near future?

For me, there is no such point, at least not a realistic one - no public transportation in my area. I live about 5 miles from work.

What will happen is that I'd make more of an effort to find some folks to share the ride and carpool.

Right now, there's two other people I know that are very close to me that works in my same department, on roughly the same hours. One lives a quarter-mile away and the other a half-mile. In six years, the first guy and I have shared a ride 3 or 4 times, usually when one or the other has a car in the shop.

So, what would it take for us to be more proactive in sharing a ride? The cost would have to overcome the inconvenience. I'm in an academic environment where sometimes I go in at 7 AM, other times at 8 AM, depending upon whether I'm teaching at the beginning of the day. Same when leaving, the time varies.

If one or more of us worked around the other's schedule, I figure it could easily add some "waste" to my schedule. For argument's sake, and because it's an even number, assume I experience an hour of inconvenience each week. (That's only 12 minutes per day - not an unrealistic assumption)

At $4 per gallon, 20 mpg car and 10 mile daily commute, my cost of gas is $10.

So, if I split the ride with someone, I save $5 per week at the expense of an hour of inconvenience. So, the question is - how much is your time worth? How much would you pay for an "extra hour" of time?

For me, that price is MUCH higher than $5. Using the math above, gas would have to be about $30 per gallon before the weekly savings were equivalent to an hour of pay. Now, I think my personal breakpoint would be somewhere in between - but I can't predict where.

Washington DC Area / I-95 Commute

A couple years ago I was on temporary duty in the Northern Virgina area for 2 months. Every morning and every afternoon I watched as 4-5 lanes of stop and go I-95 traffic crawled to and from, while the HOV lanes (High Occupancy Vehicle) had only a trickle of cars flying along at or above the speed limit.

The high gas prices were in the news then, but it did not seem to alter the ratio of single driver vehicles to those using the HOV lanes. The only logic I could think of is the same as that above - the inconvenience factor (or opportunity cost) of carpooling was still HIGHER than the gas expense of driving alone.

At the time, whenever anyone complained about the high price of gas I simply told them: As long as the commuter lanes are empty, the other lanes are full, apparently the price is not yet too high!

Looking to see if there are others in the greater area that might be interested in doing some Pathfinder RPG testing.

I live north of Kansas City in Leavenworth, KS. That puts most of the greater KC area (Missouri or Kansas side) within an hour.

I've driven to Lee's Summit, MO, Overland Park, KS and Lawrence for gaming before - it's all about the same commute.

If interested, post here or drop me a line at prefix subbob domain gmail.com

I think the wide variety of opinions expressed here shows that it really doesn't matter too much, as long as folks are "internally consistent" to their own campaigns.

The only place I see where a method needs to be explicitly stated is in the "organized play" campaigns. So there does need to be a stated method for the Pathfinder Society, for example. That's a situation where it's more important that people start out with an even footing.

We (my son and I) are doing all four Pathfinder Society Scenarios.

#1 - Thu morning
#2 - Fri afternoon
#3 - Sat afternoon
#4 - Sun morning

We're also signed up for the "Writing for Paizo" seminar and the "Ascension of the Drow" adventure Friday night.

My Hope: This event will tie in to the Second Darkness Adventure Path in some way.

Well, I went ahead and registered both of us for it as I'm sure it will be enjoyable. There was still quite a few slots left, but I did not want to take the chance of it selling out.

Also, most likely there's other con attendees at whatever hotel you pick and you can split cabs. I had to do that my first year or two going to Gen Con back when it was in Milwaukee.

Good point. Also there's sure to be others staying at the same place that may have transportation. Perhaps you just offer to chip in some $$ for gas and parking and you can share a ride. May take a little coordination, but could save a lot of money in the long run.

I just made reservations a few days ago.

There's rooms available close in at the Conrad at non-convention rate. It was going to be $259 a night coming to $1200 with tax for the four nights. And that was only a single King, so difficult to share equitably with anyone.

We (my family and I) ended up finding a convention block rate room at the Adam's Mark near the airport at $119 a night.

Ensure you check out the housing and travel forum over at the Gen Con site. There's a lot of discussion there and often people post for sharing rooms, rides, etc.

They also recommend calling the Indianapolis Conventions Visitors Bureau’s (ICVA) housing department at (317) 684-2573 and putting your name on the waiting list.

You know, now that I think about this, I'm wondering if this isn't why they suddenly moved up World Wide D&D Day to promote 4th edition. To have another event to really push the game just in case they don't show up for Gen Con this year.

Well, I wanted to show just how displeased I was they did not have ANY events for today's registration.

So I posted over on the WOTC forums about how I wanted to give 4E a chance and register for some RPGA Living Forgotten Realms events. However, there were not any available.

I also posted about being registered for all four Pathfinder Society scenarios (including a link back here).

Title: Pathfinder Sneak Preview: Ascension of the Drow

Event Description: Deep within Golarion’s Dark Lands, the sprawling drow city of Deraktinus is consumed by shadowy conspiracies as its noble houses war for the city’s dominance. Take on the role of a noble drow in a deadly game against the other players. Decide the destiny of Deraktinus in this exclusive preview event for Pathfinder’s Second Darkness AP. If your noble house takes control, your evil exploits will be immortalized forever in Pathfinder #16.

Could we get some more information about the structure of this event?

Is this a Pathfinder Society event? or just intro to Pathfinder rules and setting?

I assume the latter and that characters are provided. But there's just not enough substance there for me to sign up for it without knowing a bit more.

My son and I are already registered for all 4 Pathfinder Society Scenarios at Gen Con.

Have these been done yet? Are there any Pathfinder books out right now that can be used in addition to the 3.5 PHB?

thanks

Mike

As of today, my son and I are signed up for Pathfinder #1 thru #4 adventures at Gen Con Indy.

I'm assuming there will be some more information forthcoming regarding character creation. I can't imagine we'll be expected to spend time creating them during the first event.

Well, unfortunately, I do not have the time to go into the thinking behind every decision we made, I can go over some of the questions you posted here.

Jason - As others, I had questions concerning the "Why?" behind many of the changes.

I appreciate your attentiveness in following these forums AND responding to our posts and questions.

My hats off to you and the rest of the Paizo staff in this regard. I have several of you post over at the EN World (www.enworld.org) forums as well. (Erik Mona and Joshua White come to mind)

It is very refreshing to me - as a fan, a player and a customer - to have that level of interactivity. I know that Paizo is a business, and must be ran as one, but I truly feel as if you all are "Gamers running a Business" and not "Businessmen selling Games"

I am also interested in this.

Talk about printer unfriendly. Is there a non-pretty version?

My printer likes boring but nice documents. The pretty ones break his heart. And his toner.

If there's a Kinko's nearby, upload it to them and have it printed.

We're away from home visiting family in Omaha for Easter weekend. I had it printed a local Kinko's yesterday for only $7, double sided with the front page in color.

For a few dollar more they'll spiral bind it with thick front and back covers.

It's not a change.

I used one example - and perhaps a bad one - to make my point.

Halfings (pg 7) - Halflings are proficient with slings and treat any weapon with the word "halfling" in its name as a martial weapon.

SRD on Halfings - No mention of an automatic weapon proficiency.

And perhaps it's semantics, or interpretation, but I've always treated the racial "receive a weapon feat" as "[MAY] receive a weapon feat" for the same reasons I've posted above.

Stating "Elves ARE proficient with..." (emphasis added) just seems to me more declarative and that is why I'm asking about it. In order to be somewhat constructive, I'd suggest change each of these to state:

"[Insert Race Name] may choose to be proficient with...." Perhaps this a free choice, or perhaps they are given some advantage when using it. By making it less declarative it does not shackle those with limited imagination that may not consider the option of NOT being proficient with a given weapon.

Dwarves (pg 4), Gnomes (pg 5)and Half-Orcs (pg 6) also gain some innate weapon proficiencies in the Pathfinder rules.

Whereas in the SRD only Dwarves and Elves are granted racial weapon familiarity.

Example (pg 5): "Elves are proficient with longbows..., longswords, rapiers and shortbows..."

This does not seem to pass the realism test. Every elf - without regard to background, class, parentage, etc. - is assumed to be proficient with a certain set of weapons?

What about an elf that's orphaned and raised somewhere else?

What about the clumsy elven boy that has a powerful affinity for magic, but has never wielded a sword? One day he picks up a longsword and instantly knows how to use it?

In keeping with my "Why?" approach to reading and analyzing the Pathfinder rules I'll ask the following:

Why automatic proficiency? What is the purpose of this change?

In general your post sums up my root questions very well.

Elsewhere on these boards I posted a similar message asking: Why?

Not "Why make a change?" but "Why for EACH change?"

I'll use the same example I used there.

Theft combines Pick Pockets & Open Locks - Why? What was the issue or problem that suggested or mandated that change?

It is important to know why so we, as playtesters, can capture the data that confirms or denies the validity of that change.

Assume, for example, the change was done because Rogues took the Open Locks skill but rarely wasted skill points on Pick Pockets. You wanted to restore the iconic rogue skill of pick pockets, so grouped it with the more popular Open Locks.

On to the testing.

Since rogues now have pick pockets, a valid testing question may be - how often is the pick pockets skill used?

If the results are that rogues see more opportunities and use it, then perhaps the change is worthwhile.

On the other hand, the result may be they still never use the pick pockets skill. That could indicate more of a problem with adventure design (no opportunities for pick pockets to be useful) than a preference for one skill over another.

If, over time, there have been NO opportunities presented for the Pick Pockets skill, then one could see why it was not a popular choice.

But, in this case - the skill merger would have taken place not because of a flaw in the game system, but due to a lack of creativity on the part of DMs, module designers and players to include such opportunities.

A long message right? and this was just for a theoretical reason postulated for a single change you've made.

I hope this illustrates that, as the first poster here suggested, if we are given the background for EACH change, we are told what you are trying to accomplish and understand the objectives - we can offer better playtesting feedback.

Perspective: I'm a long time (late 70's) player of D&D, but I play infrequently. (Example, my son and I were active in Living Greyhawk 2-3 years ago, but have only played 2 times in last few years.)

In my initial scan of the Pathfinder rules, I find myself asking the same question in several places: Why?

Example: Why replace Pick Pockets and Open Locks with one skill Theft?

What I would like to see is some more Designer's Notes on the changes. Perhaps in a blog like post, or maybe in a "Pathfinder Wiki", where the designer(s) provide background on why it was changed.

The old adage If it's not broke don't fix it is tried and true. I acknowledge several things may be broken, and require fixing. But for infrequent players like myself, I do not know what's broken.

Perhaps we could get a "Director's Cut" edition of the Pathfinder Alpha rules that includes more sidebars for annotated comments.

Sticking with my example above:

Theft

Problem (or Issue): Rogues rarely choose pick pockets skill as it is of little use in most campaigns.

Fix: Incorporate Pick Pockets into new skill with Open Locks. This restores an iconic skill of the rogue class.

Note - I made up the problem reason as I do not know what the problem is - but I would like to. For the changes from 3.5, I want to know why it is being changed.

I think we can all provide better feedback and be better playtesters if we understand the motivations behind the individual differences.

I've never seen a mage fall back to crosbows or other normal weapons.

I certainly have seen it - and done it. But I'm beginning to wonder if it is a "generational issue" or one of attention span.

I have even had a wizard take archery feats so that he was better with his crossbow and could provide better non-spellcasting support during melee encounters.

There is quite a bit of precedent in heroic fantasy fiction for limited spell use per day. In many novels, the spellcasters are weakened and drained of energy as they cast their spells.

I personally do not want a "mana bar that recharges after each encounter" type of game. As others have said, if that system appeals to a particular player, 4th Edition should scratch that itch.

If Pathfinder is going to have any true claim to being in the tradition of original D&D and backwards compatibility, it needs to stick with limited spells per day.

Also, the better DMs will often incorporate non-artificial reasons that it may not be in the party's best interest to "rest & recover" several times per game session.

"Well, you could spend another night here, but remember that your mission is to rescue the princess alive. Each day you linger allows him to get further away or perhaps kill her."

The game is about making tough decisions with limited resources.

If the wizard can cast his fireball spell (or some equivalent) EVERY encounter, where's the resource management decision?

Perspective: I'm a long time (late 70's) player of D&D, but I play infrequently. (Example, my son and I were active in Living Greyhawk 2-3 years ago, but have only played 2 times in last few years.)

In my initial scan of the Pathfinder rules, I find myself asking the same question in several places: Why?

Example: Why replace Pick Pockets and Open Locks with one skill Theft?

What I would like to see is some more Designer's Notes on the changes. Perhaps in a blog like post, or maybe in a "Pathfinder Wiki", where the designer(s) provide background on why it was changed.

The old adage If it's not broke don't fix it is tried and true. I acknowledge several things may be broken, and require fixing. But for infrequent players like myself, I do not know what's broken.

Perhaps we could get a "Director's Cut" edition of the Pathfinder Alpha rules that includes more sidebars for annotated comments.

Sticking with my example above:

Theft

Problem (or Issue): Rogues rarely choose pick pockets skill as it is of little use in most campaigns.

Fix: Incorporate Pick Pockets into new skill with Open Locks. This restores an iconic skill of the rogue class.

Note - I made up the problem reason as I do not know what the problem is - but I would like to. For the changes from 3.5, I want to know why it is being changed.

I think we can all provide better feedback and be better playtesters if we understand the motivations behind the individual differences.