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This part has been a sticking point in my mind since the thread began and I've been chewing on it for a while. If players aren't very incentivized to GM because they get one extra chronicle, why would that be a further enticement with a second or third. It just seems like a very targeted solution to a narrow band problem which doesn't seem like much of an enticement to new or infrequent GMs. I will say that the GM incentives for Starfinder are ones I hope are replicated in PFS2. The GM race boon which is earned by GMing games has been a huge encouragement to our GMs (maybe too much because I have too many GMs) also, extra credit for GM over played tables for other boons (see skittermander). Those boons I can tie directly to GMs wanting to GM more. Its rare that any of our GMs run a scenario more than once as we try to get everyone play and GM credit, but even on the rare occasions when they do, I've never had one say "Darn, it's too bad I'm not getting a chronicle for this one". I'm just trying to see where this helps me attract GMs or get them to GM more. So far none of the discussion is getting me to that answer.
When GMing a quest pack, such as SFS 2-03, I know characters are assumed to start each quest refreshed. Can they use equipment found in one quest in the next? For example if they earn a pair of grenades for successfully disarming a trap in the 2nd quest, or kill a drow with some nice equipment in the 1st, can they use these in the 3rd? Or is this "reset" between quests as well? If the quests are played together as a pack (one session) with the same players at a table, then I assume it acts more like one scenario as opposed to a series of quests. As in SFS 2-03, if a table of players plays through all of the quests in one session, then anything found could be carried over between quests. This would not be the case if the quests are broken up into individual quests and run at different times.
run that same scenario again I think we may be getting to a rarified condition. It is not the GM that dictates the scenarios played, it is the players. The real restriction is players who are eligible to play a scenario, not the GM offering a scenario. We may offer a scenario once at a location (and then again months later if there is enough demand). While it is "possible" that the same GM will travel to one of our other locations and run the same scenario, it is rare that any of our players (or GMs for that matter) go to more than one of our locations, let alone two. This leaves the example condition, in serious want of players to play that second and third session of the same scenario. I'm not saying it isn't possible, it is just rare under normal conditions. That and in all likelihood, in order to keep all the other GMs happy, you need to make sure they get a chance to GM the same scenario, again, the limitation is eligible players, not GMs. I think working through ideas is important to keeping organized play active and thriving. The scenario you have suggested however would have a negative effect on our GM pool. To make the single GM happy, we would have to upset the rest of our GMs to somehow manage to allow one GM to run the same scenario multiple times (if that GM was willing to show up at all the venues offering that scenario in the first place) which is a bit of a stretch. The question was asked previously: What is the situation which may dictate such a need? I haven't seen anything that would in years of organized play, but I am open to knowing of an environment where such incentives might be necessary. Could you provide more backstory that lends itself to such a need?
We have about 75% who are Players and have no interest in being a GM. There are another 20% who are GMs. These are folks who GM at least once a month and will GM if the chance is offered. The last 5% are what I would call GM by condition, meaning that they GM because either there is no content that they can play or on a rare occasion that we have more players show up than expected and we need to offer an additional table. (This is what I would call reluctant GMs).
No, we tend to have more willing GMs than tables.
PFS1 - Steady: Drop offs occurred shortly after PF2 announcement and after PF2 release, but there is a core group still playing PFS1. PFS2 - Growth: We have expanded into two new venues since the release and returned to an old venue that we had stopped offering games at a few years ago.SFS2 - Growth: It is strong, we saw a bit of a decline after the first year, but recent numbers and an influx of new players have us at or slightly above our number of players we saw during it's first year.
There are really two questions here. Based on the OP of additional chronicles as GM incentive, honestly not really. That may help with the 5% we have who are reluctant GMs. There hasn't been an issue of finding new GMs with the current program. The Second Question: Would additional incentives not suggested here help encourage GMs? Maybe, but at least in our area, that hasn't seemed necessary.
I ran games for years out of a pop up table wedged in between toys in a comic shop. I'm waxing nostalgic for the days I used to run games out of the basement storage room in a used book store. I'll relate my SFS experience as it matches with PFS1 and likely will with PFS2 as time goes on. I currently have 13 characters in SFS. Among those are characters in every tier range. Some of those characters were built mainly to place credit from replayable scenarios. But also, to make sure that I can always have a character to play at any table (and sometimes have options based on table makeup and scenario theme). I struggle to keep enough characters in the lower level ranges because 1) There is a larger number of low level scenarios and 2) With both Player and GM credit, my characters tend to level quickly. As others have noted, once you start accumulating GM chronicles, it becomes difficult to manage distribution of those chronicles and maintain enough characters to support receiving all of those chronicles, to the point that sometimes GMs don't even take them even when available. As I already feel that my character pool is diluted, I would not want to add more chronicles to the mix. There may be others that feel differently, but from my own experience, the current system has struck the right balance with GM rewards. Locally, we actually tend to have more GMs than needed for the player base. We struggle to ensure our GMs have enough "GM" time vice playing time.
You may have to think on the fly should this be the case. The main idea is to avoid turning away interested players. If I was stuck in this situation of new players and two quest slots, I'd break up the interested players into two groups. The first group who don't mind using pregens, and the second who may be interested creating their own characters. Run the first group through the quest in the first two hours using pregens while the second group makes characters (i'd have someone handy who can do character builds). Then, when they wrap up, run the second group through the quest. If the first group enjoyed it, they may now be interested in making characters as well. I know it doesn't sound ideal, but you work with the resources you have to make sure everyone gets a shot at playing.
Step 1: GM, or get your GM to run Skitter Shot. The chronicle sheet has a boon that allows you to create a Skittermander character by playing or GMing scenarios and logging them on the chronicle. Step 2: Play or GM the requisite number of scenarios to complete the requirement on the boon. Step 3: Create Skittermander and enjoy. :)
The evening slots used to be 7pm until Midnight. It's more about being able to get a minimal amount of sleep and still GM or play as many slots possible. For someone like myself who doesn't stay downtown, loosing the extra hour was a deal breaker for being able to make morning slots after running an evening slot. I lost time I would normally attend and play in the mornings because I was GMing the specials in the evening slots. That was my "con disruption". Don't get me wrong, it was done to give GMs a gap between the afternoon and evening slots. As someone who had missed dinner on more than one occasion, I do understand the reasoning.
Unfortunately, the only pc the slime could get to was the envoy. Although he had almost convinced the party that nothing was wrong, even after they witnessed the slime disappearing down his throat. In this example the slug felt subterfuge was the best way to a prolonged existence. That raises an interesting question. Should a slime manage to find it's way into a pc and not be extracted before the end of the adventure, what is the potential result? Is the character not playable and therefore dead, or is there a cure cost for removing a slime?
Actually if we have the GM meetings for the special in their respective Slack channels before Gen Con it is much more effective. There is no time crunch. GMs can ask many more questions and see those of others more readily. The author and/or developers can answer questions more thoroughly and provide much more in-depth responses. I am 99% sure we will use this format again this year This may be a bit off topic, but would it be possible to have Slack set up for the Starfinder Special at Origins? Then the same channel could later be used for the Gencon GMs. That would provide those of us GMing the special at Origins an opportunity to discuss and share prep prior to the first instance of the special. I remember having access to slack for the first Starfinder release at Gencon and the prep materials and discussions were extremely helpful.
I had a question about this as well. If the party splits up, wouldn't the party going after the datapad be caught in the explosion once the other party reaches the injured? An issue I had was once the party reached the wounded, they were ready to evacuate and had no desire to search the rest of the hospital. I had the doctor mention that she wasn't sure if others were still in the hospital when the party asked her, so they ended up sweeping the rest of the rooms before leaving.
I ran this on Tuesday and came across an interesting question. As I understood it, the combat with the crab swarms takes place in 1-2 feet of water. The crabs can swim and unless a reason I can't fathom is given, would mostly remain under the water. How does this effect alchemist bombs, alchemist fire, or acid flasks as they would either be ineffective or reduced in this condition? As the party felt they had little which could hurt the swarms while in the water, they made a dash into the hole in the ship.
I am missing 8 PFS tables for GM credit and 7 SFS tables for credit. It seemed that at first it may have been just the ones that I had GMed multiple times (like 5 slots from Origins) but on going through the list of ones showing, I do show at least two of the tables I GMed multiple times are showing for credit.
I will be running this this weekend and I have a question on the Remnant of the First World boon: As a Gm can I select what ever item of the character I am assigning this to and also selct the property? It would be cool to have set of armor change color with your emotion or a cloak with tiny blinking eyes on it! I'm pretty sure he was asking how he should apply this to his GM credit character, and not on how it is handled with the PCs. I like the context you provided to the PC's choice. My table used some of the least valuable items they can find, with hilarious results. One now has a 'pet rock' which coos and giggles. Yes the character had rocks on his sheet as he uses them as weapons. Letting the players roll the results worked really well. I waived off a few options that did not fit the item used, but otherwise the players were happy with the results.
I will be running this this weekend and I have a question on the Remnant of the First World boon: As a Gm can I select what ever item of the character I am assigning this to and also selct the property? It would be cool to have set of armor change color with your emotion or a cloak with tiny blinking eyes on it! That is how we handled it after discussion with one of my VO's. It seems to fit the general rule of GM chronicle boon selection.
Event Name: GenCon 2017
Event Name: GenCon 2017
Event Name: GenCon 2017
Event Name: GenCon 2017
That would make sense. I have this issue with one of my Gencon Starfinder tables. It also shows an error if you look at the player records for the session. Saying that STAR players are an invalid organized play type for PFSRPG sessions.
While I think it would be difficult to find a location which is centrally located that is able to handle the size of the crowd or convention center space requirements outside of Chicago, Orlando would be a definite possibility. Not only does it have the convention center space and hotel capacity, but for us Midwesterners, the flight costs are generally low as it is a tourist destination. The one downside is that peak vacation times tend to line up with Gen Con dates, so hotel space there would be competing with other events. As Gary points out, hotels won't support peak demand unless they can have sustained business for their capacity, and I just don't see that happening in Indy without an increase to the number and size of their other conventions.
Have you tried e-mailing the organizer of the warhorn?not yet, thanks though I will have to do that You may want to contact your VOs in that area. http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/coordinators You may also want to contact Gnome Games and see if they are still hosting PFS at their stores.
If we do some deductive reasoning, since you must have 150 sessions reported for your 5th star, and 50 of these must be different scenarios, then it can be assumed that you can report the same scenario multiple times... plus, for the record, I have and it does count.
You do get GM credit (towards number of sessions for Star credit), however you can only apply it to a character once. Note that for your 5th star you must GM 50 different scenarios. If you look at the PFS guide pg. 16, it states sessions reported for application to gm star ranks. The only uniqueness qualifier is for the fifth star.
I do remember his Oracle. He was a great player who kept us alive when my dice went very cold. We really do need to get a regular PFS event going in this area.
Just east of STL in Shiloh, IL. I talked to my areas Venture Captain, it seems some closer games to me may be starting up soon. ^_^ I know the feeling. I'm in Fairview and can't make it accross the river to play in the PFS games over there. By chance did either you or your buddy play Severing Ties on Sunday. I'm just wondering because I ran into another guy from the area talking about more organized local PFS play.
As this was my first PFS experience, I do not have much to compare it to. I played generics for all but one senerio, and while there was some chaos with mustering, overall the issues did not seem overwhelming. A few things I wanted to note as possible ideas to improve flow beyond what has already been suggested: - Divide the mustering into up/down/either. I know we had one table where two players thought they were playing an up table and had to switch when the other four at the table were playing down. - For tables made up of mostly strangers, try to make sure there is a balance of classes. I know this may be hard to find a way to make this work. We had one table where the only healing was our Bard/Ranger and his two CLW potions. He had to burn through everything just to keep us up and I still have no idea how we managed to survive. Next PFS I play, I plan to have a mix of classes generated so that I can balance out the table. Perhaps pregenerated characters given to the GMs that they can offer a player for a quick fill in, noting to the players that they can change the character before 2nd level if they wish. |
