I used to run into problems with 1e PFS when I was GMing that system regularly, where a lot of players were relying on whatever numbers Hero Lab would tell them, and no matter how often I told people that Hero Lab is unsanctioned and cannot be relied on to be 100% accurate, they would insist that it was still correct.
So, I started doing what Lau suggested: "Tell me how you got to that number." And, sure enough, some people had incorrect modifiers because of a Hero Lab issue.
I have some characters that have some absurd skill modifiers in PFS 1 (i.e. my bard), but I've actually put together a handy reference sheet that calculates where most of my bonuses come from and why the modifiers are so high. If your player is getting frustrated about constantly being asked things, you can simply suggest to them that they do something similar.
As a side note, I'd imagine limiting the credit you get as a GM helps to incentivize new GMs to step up and give a shot. If you've got the same GM every week because he's trying to power up all his characters, then that doesn't leave a lot of room for other people to GM and get that experience as well. I know this isn't always the case depending on the area, but I know that, with my store, I'm GMing each PFS2 scenario only once, and I have other GMs doing the same thing. It gives variety to the players and takes some of the workloads off of the volunteers. You do also earn the AcPs, which should be enough incentive after getting that first boon sheet from GMing.
Maybe as an option people could take two GM sheets from a non-replayable, rather than one GM and one player sheet? It still sort of creates the situation with the same GM all the time at stores.
There's plenty of character options that have dropped off for 2e; we can't expect 10+ years of content development to be available right away. For example, I have character concepts I'm sitting on for classes that haven't been introduced (at least not yet), so they are on the back-burner waiting for more releases.
Look, its perfectly okay to make mistakes, but intentionally adding more flaws for crit fails really is not running the scenario as written.
You're right, and with a new system, I made a judgement call to provide more entertainment to one table that was flying through everything and looking particularly bored about it. It was the one challenge they had across the entire scenario.
And, not for nothing, I also deducted two flaws for crit successes, as this was one of the very few things in the scenario that did not address crits.
Having the Guide to Organized Play as a website is a huge advantage, it'll just take some getting used to. I can't tell you how many times someone has tried to cite something to me from an OP Guide at least two years old. As long as major updates are dated and clear rules are given on when to retcon/not retcon, I'm fine with having it as a website. Let the coders, writers, and decision-makers take some well-deserved few days of rest. A lot of this is being handled by volunteers.
That being said, my only criticism is this change could have been better communicated to the community, especially the volunteers at GenCon.
Everyone seems to be misrepresenting these "optional encounters" as a penalty that evil, wicked GMs can force onto the PCs, in another wild-haired attempt to kill a character.
I've never seen optional encounters as detrimental. They don't shift the power of a scenario in any way. When an optional encounter gets cut, it's a clear advantage to the PCs, making the scenario easier than it's designed to be. As a GM, I feel ripping out an optional encounter to fit some time constraint is unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable. As a player, I feel like I'm missing out on a bit of the flavor.
If you want to be mad that one table skipped an encounter but you didn't and you might have died or something, my only suggestion to you is to maybe just pay attention to the table you're at and enjoy yourself.
CG Female Varisian | Cleric (Varisian Pilgrim) of Desna 11 | AC: 20 (T 13, FF 19) | HP 91/91 | F +12, R +8, W +16* (+1 to all)| CMB +8, CMD 21 | Init +1 | Perception +5
Active Buffs:
Blessing of the Harrow (+1 insight to all saves)
Ruby once again stands to address the judges.
"There is a clear difference between a human's tendency to err naturally and recklessness. Humans are chaotic by nature; our history on Golarion proves that. But the recklessness of Hao Jin? She has been here in this plane for a very long time, and has spent that time providing her services to Axis, and not once has she attempted to leave or contact anybody on the Material Plane. She has been a woman of her word. By her own admission, the creation of the Tapestry was ambitious, but it was for a good cause, her Tapestry similar in concept to Abadar's First Vault, protecting valuable treasures of the cosmos. As I've said before, it is a noble goal. And since her confinement here, she has grown as a being and come to understand the ambitious folly that her Tapestry represents. If she is the best-suited person to repair what has been done, I believe her history of collaboration and rehabilitation here in Axis has proven she can be trusted."
"Hao Jin came to Axis to learn from its inhabitants; to work with you on the preservation of the history of the cosmos, but instead of treating her as an equal, you kept her in confinement. You never sought out Hao Jin for her "violation" in creating the Tapestry. You were complacent in letting her roam the Outer Planes, only when she came here to learn more about the cosmos and help the denizens of Axis in preserving history did you decide to lock her in chains. Had she never come to Axis, we may not be having this tribunal at all! I believe Hao Jin has shown her patience and wisdom over these long years and has grown to understand her youthful naivety of creating a demiplane like the Tapestry."
I'll use my Harrow card bonus to get +2 to this Wisdom-based roll. I'll also use the last box of my boon that gives me inspiration to add 1d6.
CG Female Varisian | Cleric (Varisian Pilgrim) of Desna 11 | AC: 20 (T 13, FF 19) | HP 91/91 | F +12, R +8, W +16* (+1 to all)| CMB +8, CMD 21 | Init +1 | Perception +5
Active Buffs:
Blessing of the Harrow (+1 insight to all saves)
I unfortunately do not have Good Fortune, both because I have the Fate domain (not Luck) and Varisian Pilgrim replaces an 8th-level domain power, and I thought using Dimensional Hop on allies up to 30' away was too good to pass up.
Ruby will step forward and address the judges concerns. She gives a wary glance to Hao Jin before mustering up the courage to address the court.
”When you consider the events of Golarion’s past, I find it difficult to cast Hao Jin’s efforts in a selfish light. Golarion has had its share of catastrophic or generational-altering events in history. The raising of the Starstone. The death of the god Aroden and the threat of The Whispering Tyrant. The Eye of Abendego hovering in the Arcadian Ocean. The rise and fall of the Thasillonian Empire and the treacherous Runelords, masters of sin magic. The Ghol-Gan empire; what drove the ancient, wise cyclopes towards madness and the loss of such a vast collection of knowledge is still a mystery to this day. And let us not forget about Numeria, the site of a large crash of alien origins thousands and thousands of years ago, whose technological wonders are still a mystery to some of the most esteemed scholars.
“Golarion’s history is filled with wonderous events whose knowledge has been lost to the ages. These unpredictable, civilization-changing events can strike at any time. Hao Jin’s efforts to preserve our history on such a grand scale is a feat that had never been attempted before. Sure, our world has plenty of libraries and museums and historical sites of note, but to create a demiplane where vast monuments and historical sites can be preserved is a rather noble and ambitious cause. Even if you judge her actions to be short-sighted, you cannot question her motives in preserving precious sites from our world.
“I have been to Hao Jin’s Tapestry plane many times, and I can say confidently that the inhabitants are not in any sort of unusual or extraordinary living conditions. The people there still have the same concerns of any other settlements on Golarion: worries of feeding your people or surviving harsh elements. Concerns of aggressive neighbors; worrying about shortages of provisions; arranging trade agreements and routes with neighboring settlements, for better or for worse. These creatures have experienced a truly unique situation, and have created their own cultural heritage, their own histories to scribe into books and keep safe in libraries or stories passed down between generations.
“Yes, these sites were moved from Golarion, but we cannot predict what the lives and histories of these cultures would have been without Hao Jin’s actions. We cannot predict the future; and I know this better than most people. I make a trade as a fortune-teller, and one of the biggest secrets of fortune-telling is not predicting the future, but guiding a customer towards the future they wish to achieve. Hao Jin had a future she wished to achieve: a future that preserved some of our world’s most important historical sites and discoveries. It is unfair to judge Hao Jin based on ‘what could have been’, simply because none of us are capable of knowing the alternative had she never created her demiplane. It is fair and just to judge Hao Jin’s actions, but we know her intentions were sincere, and it is very difficult to opine upon what could have been had she not intervened. And while the creatures of the Tapestry have forged new cultural experiences, and have a rich history that is extraordinarily unique, who are we to say that she has robbed them of a future that we cannot be certain of?”
I think given my chronicle history and what skills I have, Ruby should have some surface information of these events. Knowledge (religion) would give her information on Aroden, though the Whispering Tyrant reference may be a stretch. She has adventured near the Eye, in Numeria, and has explored Ghol-Gan ruins. She is from Varisia, speaks Thassillon, and has been to several Thassilonian sites.
I’m going to spend a Prestige Point to get +4 on this check, and I understand I’m taking a -2 because I’m chaotic. I'm also going to use my inspiration boon again to add 1d6
CG Female Varisian | Cleric (Varisian Pilgrim) of Desna 11 | AC: 20 (T 13, FF 19) | HP 91/91 | F +12, R +8, W +16* (+1 to all)| CMB +8, CMD 21 | Init +1 | Perception +5
Active Buffs:
Blessing of the Harrow (+1 insight to all saves)
That leaves me with only Knowledge (Religion) to contribute. I'm going to use a boon that gives me access to inspiration per the investigator ability and add 1d6 to my check.
NG Male Varisian | Magus (card caster, staff magus) 3 | AC: 18 (T 13, FF 15) | HP 21/21 | F +4, R +4, W +3 | CMB +3, CMD 16 | Init +3 | Perception +0
Active Buffs:
Marcellus smiles to the Venture-Captain. "Let's just say we left a rather favorable impression on that Haltani woman you hired to guide us. She was left rather impressed with our capabilities as Pathfinder agents."
...you can use dice to determine the result. Roll 1d6 to determine the suit (1=hammer (STR), 2=key (DEX), 3=shield (CON), 4=book (INT), 5=star (WIS), 6=crown (CHA)), and 1d10 to determine alignment (1=LG, 2=NG, 3=CG, 4=LN, 5=N, 6=CN, 7=LE, 8=NE, 9=CE, 10=roll again)
Ruby's Reading:
Once Ruby spots Zwei, she mutters some Varisian in a low tone (more prayers) while shuffling the cards. She then lays them down in a 3x3 grid on the table in front of her.
Ruby flips over the three cards down the left side {The Owl, The Betrayal, The Bear} and begins to study the images. "I believe this is telling us of Hao Jin's past. The Owl represents the wisdom of the natural order of things and an understanding of how to bind the universe together. Look at the needle-and-thread in the owl's beak, possibly alluding to her grand Tapestry. The Betrayal, in this position, is more of a symbol of her selfishness than one of deception. A selfish desire to gain what they want at any cost. The bear is a representation of Hao Jin's power. Similar to the owl, it represents a natural power, drawn from the nature of the universe itself. It also serves as a warning of consequences should someone or something attempt to trap or cage that power."
Ruby then moves on to the middle column of cards. The Wanderer, The Joke, The Liar. Her eyes seem to light up at the sight of The Wanderer. "Ha, of course. A direct symbol of us Pathfinders in the present. But it's placement is exactly where the card belongs, which is a good omen for us. It represents the intelligence of appreciating the value of something others deem worthless or outright ignore. The Joke is of a similar wit, but it values cunning or humor to overcome an obstacle instead of brute strength. She taps her hand on The Liar for a few moments. This card, however, is a concern. The Liar represents a foul, treacherous love. An obsession that knows no limits. There is more going on currently that we are aware of; I will have to remember this in the future."
Ruby flips over the final column of cards The Cricket, The Lost, The Mute Hag. She considers these cards for a few extra moments before continuing. "The Cricket is at least a simple analogy. This is meant to suggest that our mission shall be rather swift, and there is a possibility of a "treasure" of sorts at its conclusion. The Lost, however, represents an emptiness, one that causes a lost of identity. The Mute Hag is more of a representation of curses than silence. The type of curses that can turn a person's heart, or cause a creature to stumble over its own feet.
Ruby take a deep breath before standing up straight. "I believe this reading was intended more for Hao Jin herself than us. It shows us the wisdom and natural power of the sorceress. We ourselves are represented here, and the cards suggest we shall rely more on our knowledge and wit than our speed and strength. But I worry for the outcome of Hao Jin herself, or perhaps the Tapestry. While this reading suggests that we will succeed in our mission, they also suggest that her own obsession may lead to her demise." With that, Ruby looks over the cards one final time before gathering them up and putting them back in her box.
Game Effect:
Ruby points to The Owl, The Lost and The Mute Hag. "It would appear that the cards are reminding us to remember our learned experiences of the past. We would do well to oblige."Since Star/Wisdom came up the most, we all get a +1 insight bonus to all saves for 24 hours.
--------------------
After gathering her cards, Ruby shuffles the deck one final time before flipping over the top card. (1d9 + 1d6 ⇒ (8) + (5) = 13The Mute Hag) She leaves this card face up when putting her cards away. This is for the 1/day effect of the Feat Harrowed. I can add +2 to any Wisdom-based roll
With that, Ruby turns to Esfir and bows her head slightly. "I thank you for your hospitality, Esfir, and I thank the rest of you for your patience and indulgence. Now then, it sounds like we should be on our way to the Empty Court?"
I noticed the full write-up wasn't listed on the master Google Sheet, so here it is:
Mortic Transformation:
{This boon has 4 check boxes}
The Whispering Tyrant grows restless in the depths of his Gallowspire prison, and negative energy has begun to infect the mortal beings who inhabit the Inner Sea region. While you have avoided the dreadful transformation into a mortic, living mortals infected with negative energy, you still have a small fragment of their necromantic power to draw on. You may check a box next to this boon as a swift action to gain one of the following special abilities for one minute:
Death Gasp (Su): You can hold your breath to suspend the majority of your biological processes. While holding your breath, you gain a +3 bonus to saving throws to ability drain, energy drain, and sleep effects. While holding your breath you also suspend the effects of ongoing bleed damage, disease, and poison. This doesn't cure any damage that the bleed effect, disease, or poison has already done, but the suspended rounds count toward the effect's duration. If you speak, cast a spell with a verbal component, or otherwise stop holding your breath before 1 minute has passed, you lose the benefits of this ability at the beginning of your next turn.
Negative Energy Affinity (Ex): You react to positive and negative energy as though you are undead--positive energy harms you, while negative energy heals you.
Paralytic Saliva (Su): You gain paralytic saliva that paralyzes any creature you bite for 1 round unless it succeeds at a DC 13 Fortitude save. Elves are immune to this effect. If you do not currently possess a bite attack, you gain a bite attack as a secondary natural attack that deals 1d6 damage (1d4 for Small creatures) for the duration of this effect.
I'm updating the Additional Resources files with the January products now, and the team liked your quoted revision. I'll make a new thread posting it so that it's easier for people to find.
As a recently appointed Venture-Captain, my goal is to establish a traveling caravan lodge that covers Varisia. I'm hoping more members of my family are appointed as Venture-Captains as they rise through the ranks to help assist me in this endeavor.
A proposed alternate benefit for assigning two ganzi boons to a PC wrote:
Your powerful chaotic influence allows you to manifest an additional oddity several times. As a free action, you can record the name of the adventure you are playing on this boon’s Chronicle sheet to gain a second legal ganzi oddity for 1 hour. You can only have two ganzi oddities at a time, and you can only gain additional oddities in this way three times.
I like the idea of this compromise, though it seems a bit... underpowered? (Really not trying to sound like a munchkin). I would propose the following:
---Either allow the second oddity to persist for an entire scenario, and limit this action to three times across the lifetime of the character, or
---Keep it is a one hour benefit, but allow it more than three times, say once for every two character levels.
I think either of these are reasonable and not too over-powering to lead to Ganzi characters that are out of balance.
John Compton wrote:
Assuming this all works, then we’ll also be reviewing (and likely removing) the listed ban of the chaos champion and weaponplay oddities. In the meantime, do not modify any ganzi PCs who have these oddities.
This is a big one for me, because I've already got my Ganzi up to level 3 with a planned build that heavily relies on having that martial weapon proficiency and access to the fighter feats
Another option, if you feel Weaponplay and Chaos Champion are too powerful, is to only allow access to those two oddities if a player uses a second Ganzi boon (and maybe choosing one of these oddities is an alternative to the ability to gain a second oddity on some occasions).
My advice (and what I'm doing myself) would be to start immersing yourself into PF2 in the next month or two, now that a lot of the errata and rule changes have been addressed and published. The simple reason I say this is because, while PF1 is still wildly popular and everyone is going to want to take part in the last few scenarios for the system, I suspect there will be a big push to promote PF2, and there's a distinct possibility that there's at least as much PF2 as there is PF1 (if not more). Right now, I'm in the middle of my big GM push to *hopefully* get my 5-star audit table while at GenCon 2019, but I know well that my best chances to be assigned 7 tables (and qualify for 1/4 hotel room) is to at least make myself open to GM at least one other system, and as a VO, I should be on top of PF2 for its release.
Additionally (and I don't know what it's like for other regions), but the PF2 playtest didn't really take off too well in my area, and thus there's not a lot of local GMs right now that can run it. It seems to me that there is still a low percentage of GMs that aren't up to speed on PF2 (or just simply aren't interested in it). By the time the GM volunteer sign-ups come around, there may not be enough PF1 tables to go around.
And if you aren't interested in PF2, there's always Starfinder or the ACG to get involved in. Like Bob said: the more systems you can GM, the better your chances at getting a full schedule.
I've basically given up any hope of continued support for PFS for 1st edition of any kind.
Well, that's on you. Since they're still publishing season 10 scenarios, modules, flavor books, and AR for previous printings, it's obvious they are still VERY MUCH supporting PFS1e.
Just because they aren't addressing what YOU SPECIFICALLY want them to address doesn't mean they aren't supporting the system.
A rating system is far too passive-aggressive to foster good play and good GMing. If you have an issue with a GM or player, you bring it up to them. If you don't think that will work well, or if you are too embarrassed/shy/intimidated to do so, you can always go to your local Venture Officer and provide feedback to them.
For the time being, I'm staying away from the Playtest. By the time I had a chance to get about halfway through the Playtest book I got at GenCon, two errata had already been pushed out by Paizo.
I'm going to wait until at least the new year to dive back into the Playtest and get caught up with the changes that have already been pushed through. I feel like committing myself to learn the playtest system this early is going to do me a disservice when I try to GM for it.
My store seems to be back down to two tables a week, sometimes even only 1 table pending circumstances.
I'm actually having a hard time getting players to try the playtest, which I wasn't expecting. It's almost like nobody is ready/willing to try out or move over to 2E
I assume the custom map will appear in the PDF without any room labels or pertinent information? I might get a print-out of it, and I rather use a clean copy that the copy in the scenario it originally appeared in.
Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the concept. We're doing a 'Not Disney' game tonight because my wife is out at Disneyland for her birthday, so we can run something she has already played for some of the newer peeps.
A local VA in my area uses a similar Google Sheet (probably a copy of yours) because he has the bulk of veteran players in the area. However, he also has the blessing of having about 15-20 different active players per month. We don't quite have to do the gymnastics nearly as much (but, it has come up in the past).
I would still maintain my argument for a limited level of replay rather than unlimited. I certainly see the need for an expansion of replay in some capacity, but I don't think breaking it all wide open is the right way to do it.
There's something I would definitely like to add to this particular conversation line.
{For transparency, my support is expanding replay on a limited basis, whatever capacity or form that may be.}
Realistically, how many active players are there that are legitimately running out of scenarios to play? I think I can still count on one hand the number of locals in my area that may be hitting their limit (and that's out of, say 20-30ish people that play at least once a month).
There is a TON of material floating around in PFS 1e and some people haven't even played half of it. In a little over 3 years, I've logged close to 200 sessions under my belt (GM and player combined), and that's kind of a lot (averages out to more than 1 per week). Considering the number of scenarios released, I haven't even played half of them yet, and I'd consider myself a pretty active player. Now, if you're the type of player that's like "Oh, well everything before season {insert early season # here} kinda sucked so I don't want to play those scenarios", well that's on you, because there's a lot of great gems within seasons 0-3 (not that I'm accusing anyone here of this, but I've heard plenty of comments from players along the lines of "I don't play earlier scenarios because the boon sheets suck" and that sort of serves as a self-limitation.)
I'd like to think that a good VO would be able to communicate with their players to determine what scenarios are still available to players, as well as promote others to GM if they feel like they're running out of opportunities. I certainly understand the request for unlimited replay in an effort to not turn people away (especially in the shadows of Adventurer's League), but realistically, does anybody need what's going to be around 300 scenarios all wide open to play as many times as you want (and that's not even including all the modules and APs that are also available for PFS credit)? It's overkill. I keep a log of, historically, what tables have been offered at the store I VA and the date they were last played. I use this file as a guideline for scheduling tables at the store. And I let everyone know that if they consistently don't see tables they can play at, let me know what tables you CAN play at and I'll put them on the schedule.
If I were to describe limited replay in one word, it'd be "lazy". To me, it would feel like the official brush-off by Paizo of 1e:
"Here guys, let's just open it all up. Play it as much as you want. Who cares? We're done with it anyway."
Good limited options have been presented in this forum. I like Option 2, I like Option 3 (because it also promotes GMing), and I really like Option 5. pjrogers even suggested just opening it up to one additional replay per scenario, and I'd even go so far as to limit that to one replay as a player OR as a GM per scenario.
MrBear wrote:
We're all playing a game that is particularly popular with folks with social awkwardness, neurodivergent individuals, and people that struggle to find a place to belong and we're arguing over who is going to still be allowed to play. It stinks of gatekeeping to me and that makes me overly sensitive to word choice and phrasing used in the discussion.
I get your point and I sympathize with the cause, but I don't think the limitation of replay is serving any sense of gatekeeping in this situation, and I honestly don't think anyone here is suggesting that. Understand that some people on these forums (myself sure to be included) can be misconstrued based on typed words and a lot of meaning and inflection is lost in the HTML translation.
I thought it'd be nice to create a thread here for people to talk about what fun they are having for Free RPG Day.
I'm leaving my house in a bit with Heroes for Highdelve and We Be 5upergoblins! prepped for the festivities. What scenarios are other people GMing / playing?
P.S. - Did I miss something, or is there no Free RPG Day chronicle sheet this year?
I am both excited and terrified of GenCon. I'm taking on a lot of tables, and it's going to be a new con in a new place, but I'm looking forward to it and I want to meet all sorts of people from these forums there!
I'm also hoping to hit 4 stars either at GenCon or shortly thereafter.
How many different adventures did you say you would be willing to run?
Running the same adventure over and over does get tiresome, it does help in the prep time.
I'm... not sure I remember that question on the survey?
Honestly, if they dropped 8 unique scenarios on me, challenge accepted. I know two tables are the PFS specials, so we'll see what I get from there.
Special thanks to JDDyslexia for organizing the event, Iammars for GMing the table I was at, and Upaynao for an amazing display of Taldan military tactics (stand at the very top of the hill while in an archery battle so that you're silhouetted against the sky). It was a four-person table, and the other folks there were also a joy to play with.
You'll be happy to know that plans are in the works for both 8-99C and 9-00 in our area once I get back from GenCon.
I am both excited and terrified of GenCon. I'm taking on a lot of tables, and it's going to be a new con in a new place, but I'm looking forward to it and I want to meet all sorts of people from these forums there!
I'm also hoping to hit 4 stars either at GenCon or shortly thereafter.
"I absolutely do not want to hear the "X doesn't have access to the Internet" anymore. I hear that as an excuse from students and then watch them use that smartphone for everything but the work they're supposed to be doing. It is not an acceptable excuse anymore."
If you want to have this argument, maybe come from a place of compromise or, better yet, detail the advantages and reasons of such instead of ad hominem attacks based on your experience with students.
We're not your students. We're adults. Some of us still use paper-and-pencil character sheets. Some us still track our purchases by hand on chronicle sheets and ITS. And some of us prefer paper over technology.
And I think it's a false dichotomy to say that you make a character to do skills or to do combat.
I 100% agree with this. So often when a player complains about skill checks and I look over at their character sheet, I see a starting Int of 7 and a starting Str or Dex of 18. They cost themselves 2 skill points a level (and Int skill penalties) to eke out that extra +1 to attack and damage.
I have very few characters that are so sharply slanted towards one or the other. I have 18 PFS characters, and I think one maybe two are devoid of most skills and geared towards combat. But, when I play those characters, I accept that. When I play my barbarian, I know he's going to be near useless during social interactions. Likewise, I have about the same number of characters who aren't as useful offensively as well (though one is a bard, so she at least is buffing the party).
All of my other characters have a balance where there are things in combat they do and have at least two or three skills they can contribute to. Why aren't they balanced? Well, simply put, variety. As many different types of balanced characters that I have, I thought to myself "you know what, I want to combat max a Barbarian just to see how well I can play it".
Generally speaking, you can buy anything you want before the GM begins their intro to the scenario. You have downtime inbetween your character's sessions, and that's a good time to buy things.
I would suggest next time before you arrive to play, prep your purchase list and read it off to the GM before they even start reading the scenario. There's no argument that can be made to stop you from buying items at that point.
As a GM, I'm generally lenient. I allow people to buy things before they get the intro to the mission. But, once I give the mission briefing, the setting dictates what they can/can't buy.
