I made a Gear Handout for all the strange equipment in this scenario and I included a bonus handout of the partial letter which the party is supposed to find (but for which we had no handout.)
All in all, I liked this one. Mike Bramnik captured the personalities of the Pathfinder Leadership as more fully themselves than we have seen in ages. The lab was appropriately creepy, and the story is great. As a bonus, it runs fast. My party of five got through in four hours. Not bad at all!
Plus, I loved all the PF1 callbacks. This one was a pleasure to run.
I am taking over as interim GM for the party of a family member of mine, and they were tracking strange happenings with animals.
This will not be for Organized Play, but as an Organized Play VC, I own all the Paizo Adventures and I am happy to steal from all of them. So... tell me what I should be looking at!
I am planning a few Society Scenarios for fodder, including:
* Lions of Katapesh
* Blooming Catastrophe
* Perennial Crown 1 and 2
Are there any adventure paths that I should be looking at? If so, which ones? Should I be looking at Kingmaker or Quest for the Frozen Flame? Give me fodder that I can build with.
I'm the author of Heidmarch Heist, and I'm happy to answer any questions that GMs might have for running this scenario. Thanks to my amazing developer, Josh Foster, this mystery adventure turned out so well. I GMed three author tables of it at SkalCon last weekend, and it was so much fun watching my players try to figure out what was going on.
The most useful thing in there is a copy of the Map of Heidmarch Manor that I used when writing this adventure, but there are also treasure sheets with descriptions of some of the stuff found in the adventure. I also created versions of the handouts that I find a bit more readable and attractive if you have access to a good color printer.
Some cool tips: If you can, run the Old Fang fight on two levels with a separate area for the underwater fight. You can do this with two side-by-side flipmats. I literally ran one level on top of the other with a raised platform, and that turned out great.
My other piece of advice is position bad guys on top of crates or in the loft to make the warehouse fight feel multi-level as well.
This thread is a spin-off of the How do you recruit & keep GMs thread, and I'm giving it its own thread, so that we can keep the discussion of GM recruitment more focused, but I do realize this problem can affect the happiness and success of a venue -- and thus impact GM recruitment!
One awful player can ruin the gameday for everyone. I had personal experience with this, having a toxic player who loved sabotaging the plans of other players and just doing things that were 'ooky' and questionable at the gaming table.
Soon, all our regulars would change their RSVPs to 'nos' if he showed up, and we had no one bringing the fun anymore. Sometimes you can rehabilitate your problem players, but if that does not work, sometimes you just have to ban them.
It can be extra hard to decide what to do, though.
What if the 'problem' is related to a player's youth, disability or neurodivergence?
Is there a way that you as a GM or Organizer can work with the player?
Would better accessibility or a less stressful environment alleviate the problems?
How do we balance being both inclusive and firm?
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The original comments from the GM thread:
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
You want more GMs?
Tell players to stop arguing with GMs and crack down on broken character builds.
There's zero point preparing a game for a group of folks to have fun only to see one player show up and solo all fights in one round.
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TriOmegaZero wrote:
This is why I left the PbP community.
I have no time or energy to spend on people that don't make the game fun for everyone at the table. I'm as guilty of bad attitudes as the next, but when someone comes at me confrontational about rules, it makes it that much harder to be graceful and explain where I was coming from.
Build a better community by rehabilitating the bad elements or cutting them loose.
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I'm guessing that these problems occured in a PF1 game, though it is possible that they happened in a PF2 game with one higher level player playing amongst a lot of lower level players.
One thing that has improved with Pathfinder Second Edition is that teamwork is absolutely needed, and that it is more difficult to have severely over or under-powered builds.
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What is your process for dealing with players whose behaviors are problematic? How do you communicate with them, and with your other players?
A recent scenario suggested that the reclusive strix and the owl-folk syrinx of Arcadia are in fact the same people. If I picked up a strix boon and chose to be from Arcadia, could I play an awesome owl person?
Whooooo* can be better than owls? Whooooo?
Hmm
* Let's not get into grammar of Whooooo vs Whooooom when I'm making owl noises.
I was there when Ranginori was freed in Cosmic Captive, and was always hoping to be part of the adventure that frees the other elemental lords. Does anyone know when they were freed?
To me, this was more galaxy-shaking even then the Starfinder Second Edition announcement. So... Here is where we can share all our Zon-Shelyn theories.
What do you think happened here? What do you think of this merged deity and its painglaive? How will this affect Songbird Station?
MY PERSONAL HEAD CANON
Shelyn is my favorite goddess. I have loved her for forever. Still, we all can evolve and grow. I think that Shelyn has finally redeemed her brother by accepting him for whom he is, and acknowledging her own dark side. This has allowed the two twins who were separated for so long to merge and become one.
I also created one-page cheat sheets for Pregen abilities that you can print. We laminated them back-to-back with the pregen character sheets to make an easy reference guide for our players.
This was a fun little advanture. I especially appreciated the first combat with its secret doors and sneaky little gremlins. It made for a lively first combat, one the party had to truly think their way through.
So I have a Tome Thaumaturge Kashrishi named 'Tourist', with the Time-Traveler background for PFS. (I unlocked the Time Traveler background via a Chronicle.)
I know most of what I want for Tourist. He's got both Diverse Lore feat and an all-encompassing Tourist Guidebook (aka, his Tome Implement.) But I haven't decided what three lores I want for the Time Traveler background! Diverse Lore is going to take care of most of my Recall Knowledge needs. Tome is going to let me pick up other skills on the fly when I need them.
So... what I want is three fun lores that will involve things that I can *do* in game. I think that Sailing Lore should be one of them -- it's a great skill for a Tourist to have. What should be my other two Lores?
Suggestions welcome, but I am playing him next week and would like to nail down this final aspect of his character.
I found the recently released Cost of Annoyance, or the Hidden Cost of Changing a Game to be a fascinating watch. Yes, it is talking about updating video games rather than tabletop RPGs, but everything discussed here felt so pertinent to the changes happening with the remaster.
It discusses the 'but I don't want to change' feeling that many customers go through, but also why change is often necessary. It discusses how to make a change that become more welcome to your player base, or how to highlight the benefits of a given change.
As an aside, one section discussed the problems that happen when designers must make a change not to benefit the player base but to please corporate overseers, which made me think of the WOTC OGL debacle, and then of PF2's need to excise exclusive OGL content from its newer products in response.
Hello, I’m GM Hmm! What can you expect from a GM Hmm game? A fast pace, whimsy, and a whole bunch of roleplay and discovery.
More discussions will be happening here, but first I'd like to ask if everyone is up for having an associated Discord channel for this game in order to enable notifications of GM posts and such. I've found having a discord channel makes it easier for side conversations or quick check-ins with other players, while speeding up the flow of the game.
Initial Homework
If you are interested in having an associated Discord channel for notifications of GM Posts, please befriend me on Discord at Hmm#4360.
Also, please fill out your character information on RPG Chronicles for this PaizoCon game.
When looking at forums that include sub-forums like Pathfinder Second Edition, I an seeing the most receent threads all jumbled together rather than sorted by sub-forum as I prefer. Can this be fixed? It's made it harder to navigate the conversations.
Many of our favorite legacy D&D monsters will not be reprinted in Monster Core, which means that they will likely not appear in future Paizo adventures, and I'm mourning a few of them.
In PF1, one of my PFS characters, Baroness Bobbi, had an adorably incompetent pet Owlbear named Hoot. (The Owlbear was incompetent because it was based on the underpowered bear companion -- thank goodness PF2 fixed up many of the less optimal animal companions!) Hoot accompanied her everywhere, and ran into battle with a cry of "Hooooooooot!" whereupon he'd miss every single enemy. As a result, I'll always have affection for Owlbears.
I'm also going to miss Otyughs for their Oscar the Grouch, kings of the trash quality. One of the best PFS NPCs of all time was Hats, an Otyugh who truly loved his headgear and would balance hats on his tentacles and manipulate them like puppets. I had really hoped at one point for an otyugh ancestry in PF2, and once considered writing a Starfinder adventure involving a revolution on a space station starting with an Otyugh trash union because managemement would not let them have their slam poetry night.
What are your favorite OGL monsters? Who will you miss and why?
I wish that we could have had this start in Paizo Organized Play. Yes, I know that we could join in, but it would be nice if it had started in coordination with our program, so that we could use it to pull in new players and GMs.
Also, could we do something live and simultaneous to this at our in-person venues?
Could we just make all PF2 quests repeatable? Looking at some of the older non-repeatable quests, they don't seem any different in content and structure from the fully repeatable bounties. They also don't seem to have anything especially noteworthy in the boon department, in case we were worried about repeatable adventures with boons.
I would love if some of these early quests became repeatable so that I could run them again for conventions and game days.
I've been looking through the Lost Omens Firebrands book and there is so much amazing lore that I keep thinking I should make a Firebrand, I love that their lore has them including every ancestry from all over Golarian. But since I'm still just noodling ideas around in my head, I'd love to hear other people's character concepts.
I'm looking for anything, especially consumables, that would help a master thief for levels 10 and below. Uncommon items are fine. I'd love to hear your crazy suggestions!
My character, Jinglemane, loves his Leiomano, which he got from an ACP transfer from a relevant chronicle. But now treasure vault has a revised Leiomano, that is available (also for ACP.)
If I like Treasure Vault's Leiomano better, do I need to spend ACP (again) to acquire it? Or should I consider the second version a revision of the first?
Let's take a look at this skill item bonus chart from Archives of Nethys. Where are the low-level Religion items? Almost every other skill has a level 3 or Level 4 item that boosts all uses of the skill. The Staff of Providence at Level 6 boosts Survival, and only boosts Religion for Recall Knowledge. After that, players have to wait until Levels 9 for their first Religion Skill item.
I thought that it would be fun to purchase a Cart for a merchant character that I had in Society play, but alas, Carts are not Society-legal because they're an option from the GMG, and no options from the GMG have been sanctioned for Society characters.
Can we please have the ability to purchase simple vehicles like the Cart? I am trying to think of how this might disrupt a game, other than the possibility of having to find parking for the cart once you leave a road.
I just realized that I am halfway to 150 tables in PF2, so I really should look at getting those specials locked down. I thought I would ask though if there are other scenarios that count towards the specials requirement, the way there are in Starfinder and PF1. While I have some specials already, I admit I've had a more lackadaisical approach to GMing PF2 specials. So... are there any scenarios other than the multitable specials that count towards this requirement?
A month ago, I built a sylph gnome named Bitty Blue, a gnome from the Mwangi Expanse with a grandfather who's a Cloud Dragon. But as I was watching Nonat1's video on Multiclass Archetypes for every class that I came across his idea for fighter with the wyrmblessed sorcerer dedication. I've never built a fighter before, but the idea of one with a sorcerer dedication intrigued me -- especially since this fighter could also be descended from Cloud Dragons and be Bitty's brother, Barak Blue.
What I already know of the character
Ancestry: Sylph Gnome
1st Level Ancestry Feat: Gnome Weapon Familiarity for the Gnome Flickmace
I also know that I will be spending his 2nd and 4th level class feats on Sorcerer Dedication and Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting.
But I'd love your suggestions on everything else, especially that all-important first level fighter feat.
More discussions will be happening here, but first I'd like to ask if everyone is up for having an associated Discord channel for this game in order to enable notifications of GM posts and such.
This is also where I'll be announcing pre-game homework, so stay tuned!
So you have found my stolen casefiles and think that you can unravel them? Mirror duplicates. Temporal anomalies. A book neither living nor dead, with a mind of its own? Each topic presenting enough questions to fill a library, and each a mystery I was unable to solve. I know there must be something more behind them. Perhaps you will have better luck...
K.H.W.
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Eando Kline, head of the Vigilant Seal faction, pauses in his reading of the book's forward. He peers up at Tess, the duskwalker elf who brought him this disturbing book. He raises a sceptical eyebrow. "And you say you found it... in the Boneyard? Pharasma's Boneyard?"
Hello. My oracle, Tess, has a primal witch dedication feat. Is this enough for her to be able to trigger a longstrider wand, or do I need to put Trick Magic Item skill feat on her?
Is there a scenario that has a good description of Vigilant Seal Head Quarters?
I am running some Dark Archives casefiles in PBP for Outpost, and I'd like Eando to be the main quest giver. It's nice to be able to provide some setting detail in PBP.
(And if he doesn't haven an office, that would be good for me to know. So far I have seen him operating out of field tents and briefing rooms in other lodges.)
Hello, I’m GM Hmm! What can you expect from a GM Hmm game? A fast pace, whimsy, and a whole bunch of roleplay and discovery.
Welcome to my recruitment for the Dark Archives Duology, a game for the Play-by-Post convention, OutPost VI.
What is the ‘Dark Archives’ Duology?
(In this case, it is for two of the Dark Archives Case Files.)
Eando Kline, the head of the Pathfinder Society Vigilant Seal faction, has gotten hold of a strange book: The Dark Archive Folio. Found within the book’s pages are the last mysteries of the Lone Archivist. It’s a book of unsolved mysteries filled with dangerous phenomena, and Eando Kline wishes his most trusted agents to follow up and resolve them.
The casefiles we are tackling in this adventure are:
The Lady’s Harvest for four Level 7 characters.
Tomorrow’s Feast for four Level 10 characters.
The plan is to tackle these mysteries back-to-back, giving the characters a chance to ‘level’ between adventures.
Do I have to apply with an actual PFS character? I have so many ideas!
Nope, but I have a strong preference for characters that have a history, and whom players have built over time. It’s good if you know your PC’s personality, history and quirks. I also want characters who have the ideals of the Pathfinder Society: Explore, Cooperate, Report!
So you can apply with a different character, but know that I will be scrutinizing non-PFS characters harder, and I will expect them to be considered members of the Pathfinder Society for the purpose of this game.
Will this be for PFS credit?
Absolutely. These two adventure each offer half a scenario’s worth of PFS credit.
So are these SHORT adventures?
Nope. Each are as long as a PFS scenario in play-time, which is why we’ll be moving at a fast pace for this one.
What do you mean by ‘fast-paced’?
Here’s my pacing expectations:
Approximately two posts a day, including weekends
Open communication about vacations, conventions and busy work days if you know them in advance. Real life happens to everyone, but if you can predict your schedule, that’s great. (For example, I have very busy Wednesdays, and may only get a single post in on those days.)
Posts that interact with your fellow players.
A willingness to be botted by others
A ‘bot me’ spoiler on your profile that includes dice expressions for your most common attacks and spells.
What Level does my PFS character have to be?
Because we are running this in Adventure Mode, the exact level of your actual PFS PF2 characters does not matter, so long as you can temporarily adjust them to the correct level for each chapter. These adventures can apply to characters of any level.
Can this be a variation on my PFS character? I’d like to try out a different feat, weapon, archetype, heritage.
Since we’re already going to be messing with the character’s level, I’ll likely allow small variations. Just talk to me about them!
How will you be choosing players?
I’ll be looking for a team that might go well together, as well as players that enjoy roleplay and cooperative style play. I will try to make my decisions quickly.
When will you be choosing players?
GMs for Outpost can apply on February 7th. Everyone can apply on February 10th. I will likely be making my decision by February 12th, though I reserve the right to make it earlier if I get four excellent applications.
Can I ask you questions here before applying?
Sure, ask away. Do know that I am planning on posting the actual application form later.
My misreading of a recent thread title in this forum led me to great disappointment when it turned out to NOT be a discussion of tailed ancestries and heritages. I really love ancestries with tails -- so much so that I was delighted when I realized that my mwangi gnome sylph who is descended from Cloud Dragons could actually have a draconic tail because all geniekin have access to the feat, skillful tail. Yes, her tail is non-functional, but I love to roleplay with it.
What tails do you love? Are there tail weapons you use? What classes do you use for your tail? I am tempted to make yet another thaumaturge with a ganzi just so that I can have fun whacking people with the biggest tail in the game. Tell me about your character's tails!
The new ORC agreement seems to be generating a lot of interest in Pathfinder 2nd Edition from the 5E crowd. Is anyone planning any events to welcome new players or teach PF2? I was considering this, but we have Con of the North in a month, and maybe that will serve as our place to welcome newcomers.
Ahem! We've long known that gnomes make great adoptive parents, even if their idea of child-rearing may include ideas like, "Let's move our entire village next to this volcanic area known for alien invasions and goblin wars. There'll be no danger of them bleaching there!"
But surely there are many sorts of adoptive families out there. I am the gnome Zendel of Oprak, and when my parents died, I was adopted by a hobgoblin merchant named Bradazig. Baba Bradazig has treated me well, got me educated, and made certain that I had the same military training all hobgoblins do. My fellow students made fun of my height and apparent weakness until they learned how my ability to calculate odds mid-battle makes me a formidable opponent. I am a creature of two worlds.
Tell me about your adoptive families and your cross-ancestry marriages, whether they have gnomes in it or not. What part of the world do they live in? What have you, the adoptee, learned from your adoptive culture? How has this affected your worldview? I'd love to hear your stories!
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Adoptive Mechanics
In addition to all the roleplay stuff, please feel free to tell me about your adopted mechanics if you wish. Zendel has the regional background Onyx Trader, indicating that he is a merchant trusted by the hobgoblin empire of Oprak. His gnome feat, obsessive lore, gave him scaling hobgoblin lore, and at fifth level he will be taking the hobgoblin feat "Drill Sergeant" which gives a bonus to anyone following him in a skill in which he is expert. (As an Investigator, he will have a lot of Expert Skills.)
However, I admit that the hobgoblin stuff was mainly chosen for flavor. I was fascinated by the idea of what a gnome raised to be a loyal citizen of Oprak would be like, and so far, I have found Zendel to be quite enjoyable!
I'm kind of curIous to see if there are as many Gnome Flickmace adoptions as folks claim, or if people look for other things from their gnome adoptions!
Reason A: Well, players usually want to use their own characters for adventures. So if there is a choice between their own character and a pregen, they will want to play their own character.
Reason B: I don't want to confuse new players who have already figured out how to create characters with the CRB and tell them they now need to recreate those characters with Beginner Box rules. It's hard enough teaching character creation, Pathfinder training and Organized Play access rules.
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I love that the sanctioning allows players to create characters with the Beginner Box rules. That's important. I just want to change it so that you can have either a party of PFS characters, or a party of Beginner's Box characters. I would love to be able to run this for the new folks in my lodge!
I am GM Hmm, a fast-paced and fun GM! I normally try to aim for a fairly fast pace of 1-2 posts a day, weekends included. I know that the holidays are crazy, so I expect that we will have days off for Christmas and New Years. In addition, Wednesdays are often insane for this GM, so if it's a Wednesday, and I haven't posted yet, remember that's my worst day.
If you know that some days are going to get busy, please let me know so that I or someone else can bot you.
HOMEWORK
Please fill out the following:
1) Secret Roll Macros courtesy Doug Hahn.
2) RPG Chronicles
3) Add your avatar and any glyphs or other information to Slide Two of my Slide Show.
4) Add a 'Bot Me!' spoiler on your profile so that you can be botted if you are having a busy day.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM ME?
Fun! Whimsy! Attention to details! Puns and sometimes even a song or two.
I am delighted to have you all in my game! Thanks for joining me for this adventure!
Society has prepared a grand celebration to commemorate the opening of the new Sedeq lodge. Aristocrats, diplomats, merchants, and other important figures have come from across Sedeq and Qadira to celebrate. You've been charged with hosting this event by Venture-Captain Esmayl ibn Qaradi, who's unable to attend due to important business in Katheer.
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Instructions from Venture Captain Esmayl ibn Qaradi:
My friends,
I'm afraid there's nothing for it. These negotiations are simply too time-sensitive for me to slip away to Sedeq for the week. I must leave the role of host at our new lodge's grand opening in your capable hands. Don't worry, all the arrangements have already been made. All you need to worry about is playing nice with the guests when they arrive. Tell some stories, work the crowd, make sure everybody has a good time, and most importantly, make a good impression. Remember, most of this crowd agreed to come so they could judge the mettle of the Pathfinder Society with their own eyes. The friends you win today could make all the difference for our future prospects here.
Good luck.
Venture-Captain Esmayl ibn Qaradi
P.S.—I've forwarded a request from Venture-Captain Fola Barun, leader of the Envoy's Alliance, who wants you to make some new friends for the Society. Please do your best to fulfill her needs. To avoid making mistakes, be sure to mingle and learn what you can about our guests. Work first, then enjoy the party!
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Letter from Fola Barun:
Esmayl,
I hope this letter finds you well. For that matter, I hope it finds you at all; I know how easy it is to mislay things while running hither and yon the way you do. I just wanted to remind you of the honored guests we discussed who were interested in the Lodge opening. We burned quite a few favors getting all of them to agree to an appearance, so let's try to get our fair share of the bargain, yes?
There's three in particular who I believe are already inclined to favor us. They just need a little nudge to seal the deal: Kendesh al-Maren's little sibling, Khayrat; the historian Casira bint Meji; and Sir Agdal Karga, head priest of the Shrine of the Cleansing Flame. We need to dig our roots into the local culture as soon as possible, lest all the good will we've fostered dry up and get blown away. If you find the chance to make a good impression on those three during the party, take it!
Yours, Fola
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With a party to host, what have you been doing to prepare for this grand event? Post a scene introducing yourself and your party preparations so far to get us started!
Feel free to chat amongst each other! If you must dot, please delete your post to keep Gameplay just for roleplay.
Doug Hahn noted in a recent post (in the GM thread for 4-04 To Seek the Heart of Calamity) that a number of recent PFS scenarios have run long. To those who do not want scenario spoilers, here is the pertinent bit:
Dough Hahn wrote:
Length
This one really needs a 5-hour slot. The elemental encounter took an hour and really walloped ‘em. I skipped scorpions altogether, and the quicksand.
We simply did NOT have time.
As with 4-03 I would like to reiterate that some of us have hard stops on weeknights and it would be nice to see some of these scenarios trend back down to the 4-hour mark instead of against the 5-hour mark.
I will note that in addition to PFS 4-03 and 4-04, 4-06 also runs past the 5 hour mark, making it impossible for me to run any of these scenarios on our regular Wednesday night game nights. This makes me sad as both 4-03 and 4-06 have some delightful weirdness.
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When scenarios run long, I run repeatables instead
I recognize that sometimes you will have an excellent story like Lodge of the Living God that will require you to run it in a weekend home game or in a double-slot over the course of two nights. But if we get too many of these scenarios in a row, suddenly I can't run any of the new storyline at my location. We run games weekly, and many of my players are veterans who have played all the older scenarios.
Running repeatables is an unsatisfactory way to fill this gap. I’d love to have our players also experience the Metaplot.
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Mid-Week Game Nights are crunched for time
One issue that we've been facing at Dreamers has been a change in game store hours, post-pandemic. It used to be that the majority of game stores stayed open until 11pm. But post-pandemic, every game store in Minnesota closes at 10pm. This has left us with 3.5 hours in which to run scenarios.
Now, I'm an experienced GM. I can usually use all sorts of tricks to run games more efficiently:
★ Custom Handouts
★ Printouts of the Mission Briefing
★ Gear and Spell Cards
★ Keeping the players on task, and using NPC dialogue to clue them in
★ Calling fights when there are no longer any significant enemies left
★ Limiting player signups to 4 people for slightly longer scenarios
I’ve gotten really, really good at providing a really fun and informative run in a shorter time frame. But I cannot fit 5.5 hours into 3.5.
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Longer Scenarios discourage GM recruitment
We run 3 tables regularly at Dreamers, which means that we rely on casual and newer GMs to fill that third table. This is normally a good thing. The Dreamers regulars know that Bret and I cannot run everything because 3 > 2. This means that we have a great incentive to recruit and build new GMs, or to encourage casual GMs to continue building their skills.
But new and casual GMs run much slower than experienced ones. I want them to branch beyond repeatables, but it can be frustrating to a GM if they are rushing endings.
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Final Thoughts
I know that one size does not fit all. Some stories just need more time to tell. But I’m betting that the Bay Area and Twin Cities are not the only locations with a hard cutoff for mid-week game nights.
Is there any possibility that you might consider allowing characters to purchase Bequeathal multiple times, each time for a different option, rather than only once each for common / rare / unique?
I find myself faced with the dilemma of how to deal with an upcoming Extinction Curse chronicle, which offers several lovely uncommon options, but I can only bequeath one of them.
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