Heathere3's page

I just want to restate so it's perfectly clear to everyone here as
well as the Paizo board. I had fun playing the mod. I enjoyed it.
The mod itself was not bad, in any way, shape, or form. If I had a
regular group of 5-6 players who we would always play together I
wouldn't think twice about playing again. Because we could set up
some 'ground rules' on how to handle situations like what occured
Wednesday night. But that's not how organized play campaigns work.
And because of the personalities of the gamers where I play normally,
I don't want to have repeats of what did happen. And I know they'd be
worse out here given the personalities involved. And Sam and I have
been playing together off and on for what, about 6 years now? We
certainly know each other well enough that it should have been easy to
handle. And if we can't resolve it easily, that really doesn't bode
well to me for things like random convention tables. I don't think
the conflict got particularly "heated" and I'm sure Sam and I could
easily game together in the future with no problems. (Other than our
LG characters' tattoos arguing for fun :)... ) I don't "blame" him
for RPing his character the way he did. I was not sold on the concept
of factions as used in Pathfinder before playing. I tried it because
a lot of friends urged me to, and a good friend was having his first
time DM'ing. And poor Rusty did a great job with it, and with trying
to deal with the problem that arose. But my concerns were borne out.
So I'll choose not to continue to play Pathfinder. I don't wish it
any harm, and hope it thrives. It's just not for me.

And the difference in these two play styles and the conflict it *will* cause is why I don't think Pathfinder is going to be the right system for me. I'm glad I tried it, and think it'll be a really neat campaign for people who see things Sam's way and like the interparty conflict aspects of it. But for me, I'm a lot closer to Shisumo in opinion of what I like in gaming. And these type of conflicts will be a recurring theme in this campaign. I do agree with Sam that it will be inevitable. So for those who like it, enjoy, it looks like you've got a great campaign starting! For me, I'll look for something else that's a better fit.

I was also at the table and was actually the player that had the biggest problem with it. (Not the druid). Part of it was the player who wanted him dead wasn't willing to work with me at all in character. I stepped out of character and asked him directly to work with me here, give me some reason why we need to kill him after he's surrendered to us, and the player refused. His choice. And something I can see any number of others doing.

But my much larger overall concern was with how this sets players against players.
I was playing outside my normal player base to get a feel for how the factions and missions work. I had concerns about PVP developing with the faction system and read in the rules how the missions won't conflict, so I thought I'd try it anyways.

We have a group of prickly players out here. It's just the nature of the beast. Player X won't play with Player Y. Player A and Player B won't play at each other's house but are okay on neutral ground. It's not an ideal gaming group, much though I might wish it were. In other words, we already have a lot of player conflict happening at our game days. This is not what makes gaming fun to me. But I deal with it at the level it's at because it's that or don't play at all. But it's also something I'd rather be aware of when choosing which campaigns I wish to play. And playing a campaign that is going to increase the level of player conflict doesn't sound fun to me.

I am the one who made the most fuss at the table last night, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to clearly articulate where my problem with it lay. That took more talking it out on the hour and a half train ride home. I had a lot of fun playing the mod itself and felt it had some neat imaginative elements. I *loved* how the NPC tried to slow us coming onto XXlocation redactedXX. But it's sadly not a system I'll be running out here.