Jeff Way's page

Sadly enough, too many people will do what they can to get an edge in the game. In the past, I have had players erase chronicles that were written in pencil and reassign them to new characters. So having a scanned or copied boon would prompt me to have to audit all that players characters to make sure there were not multiple copies.

I know there are online conventions and there is only a couple of solutions that I could think of. First is that the GM/organizer mail out a physical copy. Second is if the GM/organizer fills out a physical copy fills out everything on the sheet and then scans it in and sends it. The second method would basically eliminate it from being traded.

I know that for the most part people are honest and would not reproduce sheets, but because of the few many have to be inconvenienced.

So on just trading boons, mail them. Con boons are suppose to be special and somewhat rare. Wet signatures only.

This is why, as a coordinator, I print two copies of all membership cards. Staple them together and then cut them up. When I hand them out I have the player put their names on both, and give one back to me. I still have copies of every membership card I have handed out.

Props, that is definitely going above and beyond.

The point I was trying to make is that sinceit doesn't level, they will outlevel its usefulness shortly.

How is a first level character meeting the fame requirments for a 500g item? Don't you need 5 fame for that?

I guess you would have to see if a purchased pet falls under the "mundane" category.

Jeff Way wrote:

I made the first mistake of not clarifying my definition of "rules lawyers" and "power-gamers". That has since been defined and we will now just call them "jerks". If anyone is not okay with that just say so

*raises hand*

Jeff Way wrote:

Yes there are some gaps in the rules as said earlier and we do need to discuss them. But we should be responsible with our dialog with each other and how we use those gaps at the table.

I believe a good place to start would be to stop calling an entire group of people that you disagree with "Jerks".

Jeff Way wrote:

(please use above definition of jerk)

I see no reason to abide by your perception of reality.

Jeff Way wrote:

It is also the right of the GM to tell you to leave the table.

Seriously, how did you become a VO? The VOs I know aren't the type to announce in a public forum their disdain for 2/3rds of the player base. They arent the type to force their idea of "fun" onto other players, or attack them for enjoying their "badwrongfun". How can players possibly come to you with a problem if you categorize the world into Box A and Box B?

Make up all the arbitrary definitions of whatever words you want, but next time consider the impact they may have on people who don't share your mindset.

Well, thank you for raising you hand. Apparently you didn't read the rest where I asked not to blast away. Your wanting to do that makes me question on whether or not you want to be a positive contributor to the PFS community. I have not read (to my knowledge) any of your posts in other areas. Apparently I have hit a nerve with you. If you want to hash it out, please send me a private message, there is not need to do it on the forums.

Now to the next part of your statement, if 2/3 of the players were doing this, then I would have never spent my time or money on this game. I would not have spent 1000's of hour developing other GM's, recruiting, setting up stores and championing the cause of PFS.

Now this term of "badwrongfun" is real. If I was a person who is on the outside and looking in saying that person is doing it wrong, I have no leg to stand on. Now, if I am at a table where there is a "power-gamer" making everything a face-roll, I then have a stage and pulpit to say you are destroying my fun.

Nefreet, I have asked earlier for people to keep things civil and not troll. Now I am going to ask that specifically of you.

I see the pro's and con's to both side of this issue. As a GM, I am in favor of season 5, as a player I am in favor of missions. When I originally read about this change I was excited. But the implementation of this has made me step to the side on this.

When they put out what your faction goal is, I saw it people are going to have to role-play that in scenarios as a constant. But, then they announce which faction has ties to which scenario. That move basically tells players when to RP and when not to. That to me is a huge mistake. I know they did it cause they know people would speak up (whine) that they would know what character to play.

If the factions were not listed for public consumption would help force (not really the wording I want) people into role-playing for the boons. The boons are not meant to be a given, so if you don't really care about them, you can just show up and roll the dice.

I guess I would really like to keep the trolling down and keep this as a discussion. I made the first mistake of not clarifying my definition of "rules lawyers" and "power-gamers". That has since been defined and we will now just call them "jerks". If anyone is not okay with that just say so without blasting away please. I see a lot of "jerks" do what I wrote earlier"

Too often we look for wording where there is none or put emphasis on a word to get away with what we want to do. We do this in game and in life to try and get the most benefit for "me". We tend to dismiss the spirit of the rule. We try to morph something into what it is not. I know we all do this to some extent. There are a lot more "creative" players then there are developers. Just to let you know the developers miss some things once and awhile.

Yes there are some gaps in the rules as said earlier and we do need to discuss them. But we should be responsible with our dialog with each other and how we use those gaps at the table. Obviously, if you find something, you should research it. If there is no definitive answer from a paid campaign person, then go to your store coordinator on his/her ruling as they see it. If you are the coordinator, then go to your VL/VC. If you are a VO, go to other VO's. If you are Mike Brock, just decide for yourself and post it. But all that should be done before you apply it to your character, that way there will be no confusion. Same applies to items.

If you want to be a "jerk" (please use above definition of jerk) that is your privilege. It is also the right of the GM to tell you to leave the table. So please be a responsible "jerk".

Jeff Way wrote:

Todd thank you for putting it a little more concise on the definitions of "rules lawyers" and "power gamers". I know a few people that are rules people that I do like having at the table. If I know something is coming up that I am vague about, I usually ask them to quickly look it up. Rules people I have no problem with, "rules lawyers" who tend to shut down a session, those are the people I trying to talk to. (not attack)

If fact, if anyone has felt attacked by this posting, I am sorry. This is more about asking people to pick their spots and not fight a GM over every little thing. I know it feels great to be right all the time and I know it also feels great to be able to one-shot all the encounters. But knit-picking at the table tends to frustrate everyone at the table. Also solo one-shotting an encounter can deflate someone else excitement.

That's what I thought (hence what I said about giving you the benefit of the doubt). I just wanted to point out that it didn't necessarily come across that way. Most frustration-born posts use those labels far more broadly than you apparently meant them, so it felt like were firing on wide-beam, so to speak. ;)

And I apologize that it came across that way.

Jiggy,

I don't think he was saying that he has a bone to pick with anyone who challenges his ruling, but he DOES if they do it in the middle of the game instead of afterwords, taking up time and stopping the game.

You call yourself a "rules guy." Why not use the term "Rules Lawyer?" Because we all have a negative connotation with that gamer trope, and you probably don't fit into the that mold at all with your rules knowledge and play style. It's not a positive moniker and I don't think Jeff (correct me if I'm wrong) is referring to your type of play style at all.

The same way people who optimize their characters don't generally like to be called "Power Gamers." There is a negative stereotype associated with that name as well. You can min-max characters all you like, but until you start taking over the game with a 'look-what-I-can-do' attitude, you aren't the type of player that Jeff is referring to.

I think most of us can agree that the stereotypical "Rules Lawyer" and "Power Gamer" attitudes aren't in line with what a cooperative role playing game should be and exhibit "Jerk-y" behavior.

Todd thank you for putting it a little more concise on the definitions of "rules lawyers" and "power gamers". I know a few people that are rules people that I do like having at the table. If I know something is coming up that I am vague about, I usually ask them to quickly look it up. Rules people I have no problem with, "rules lawyers" who tend to shut down a session, those are the people I trying to talk to. (not attack)

If fact, if anyone has felt attacked by this posting, I am sorry. This is more about asking people to pick their spots and not fight a GM over every little thing. I know it feels great to be right all the time and I know it also feels great to be able to one-shot all the encounters. But knit-picking at the table tends to frustrate everyone at the table. Also solo one-shotting an encounter can deflate someone else excitement.

People can do some things to inadvertently promote the things you are trying not to see.

By nature I am pretty meticulous and spend hours upon hours building many of my characters and planning their progression (many of which never even see the light of day). Many of them I don't even desire playing until they hit a certain level and my theme, trick, uniqueness, whatever kicks in. I put a lot of investment into making the types of characters I want to play. However, I try to make a point to not overshadow the rest of the party during play. I say all this to make the point that I see some real lose when I lose a character, it wasn't just 10 minutes making them and then whatever time I got to enjoy playing them.

-If I am playing under a GM that seems interested in everyone having a good time and is new, I never mention rule stuff unless they seem to be looking for help or it is an instakill.

-If someone with the same interest in fun for all is GMing but they are more experienced, I might make a quick rule comment here or there that I think they would want to know, but don't press the issue and often add language like "but its cool if you are wanting to do it that way" unless of course it results in major losses.

-If however the GM is constantly bragging about killing PCs, asking other GMs with anticipation if they were able to kill PCs, seeming disappointed when no PCs die, and directly attempt to attack the wealth of PCs, I play very different. With this last GM, I plan to hold them to the letter of law any time it might make a real difference. I also try to avoid playing my concept characters that haven't really came into their own as a powerhouse so I have a lot less chance of losing the time I invested up front.

This should not be misinterpretation by others to think that I am saying I want no challenge. Quite the contrary, I actually love wins that we just barely scrape by on. I am just saying that the more competitive the GM, the more competitive I am as a player.

I believe you are getting to the heart of what I was saying, about not overshadowing others and knowing when to bring up a rule. I thank you for doing that. I personally love a challenge and my own personal philosophy is "No one is having fun until someone goes below 0, not necessary killing them. Otherwise it is just a face-roll and no one is having fun with that."

On a second note: if you have a GM that is bragging about killing PC's then that is an issue that needs to be brought up to the store coordinator or a VO. That just develops a bad reputation. Now if there are a couple GM's that give a ribbing to each other about killing each other's characters, that is something else. (please keep this comment out of the rest of the thread to keep it focused on the original post. If someone wants to start a thread about GM killing machines, please do.)

I know people are probably going to throw troll responses at this, maybe you that do or want to should take this to heart. (I kind of lump rules lawyers, jerks and power gamers in one category)

Too often we look for wording where there is none or put emphasis on a word to get away with what we want to do. We do this in game and in life to try and get the most benefit for "me". We tend to dismiss the spirit of the rule. We try to morph something into what it is not. I know we all do this to some extent. There are a lot more "creative" players then there are developers. Just to let you know the developers miss some things once and awhile.

There is a "Don't be a jerk" rule in PFS. It seems a lot of people have skipped over this and it commonly manifests itself in a couple different ways:

People that tend to lawyer up can slow a game down to a crawl, frustrate the GM and players (new and old) leaving several dissatisfied customers. If you have an issue, hold it till after the scenario unless it is something that the GM is doing wrong that results in a player death. Now notice I did not just end it at doing something wrong, I kept typing. What did that second part say? I know some of you skipped it. It said "that results in a players death". If you are a GM that likes to lawyer up, relax, you are there to foster cooperation and fun among the players, not beat them to a pulp with your knowledge of the game.

I remember some of my early days playing a certain MMO. Know matter what class you had, there was the premium build and if you did not have it then you were worthless and should just quit the game. I personally do not need others to tell me how to play or build my character. I know there are a lot of others out there in the same position. I know that if a player (new or old) needs help in building a character, I do just that, HELP. I do not build it for them, I do not tell them what to do in game. If they don't know what to do, I let them GM handle it. If I am the GM, I give them several options on what they could do mechanically. But I always ask them what do they want to do and I help them get to that point.

This game is a cooperative game, which means everyone should be included. With that there are many different people that play. You are not the A-typical player. Which means that not everyone wants to be you. There are currently 21 legal classes with 10 more to soon be released. Oh and every class has a multitude of archetypes. Oh, and you can be more than one class as you level. Point is, there is no one way to build a character. Some people like to have a role play aspect to their ROLE PLAYING GAME. I have seen too many people have that shoot first mentality. This is a adventure, not a first person shooter. Quoting a friend of mine, "there is no winning PFS" yet it seems that people keep trying to. How much fun do you really have when another player one shots a NPC before you ever get to say a word. (Oh you just one-shot killed a possessed NPC that we needed information from... good job ex-lax) Listen I know there will always be power-gamers out there, and it is real easy with all the splat books that are out there, just tone it down. You do not need to do over a hundred points of damage at first level.

Just want to say thank you and I am looking forward to working with everyone as we try to expand this wonderful thing called Pathfinder Society.

I know this question is totally suited for this thread but i'm hoping to get a hit. Where the heck do you find the chronicle sheets for the modules? I accidently stumbled on it once and now I can't for the life of me find them again.

Well thank you for the list Capt.

That just make my point even more. So in the first 29 senarios you counted 5 encounters that have core races that are not human. With 4 encounters written for every scenario (on average) that makes that 5 out of 116 encounters. Thats a 4% rate. I know that many have creatures/undead to fight also. Now I do not know how many encounters were with humans in that same span, but I will venture to guess that it is around 50%.

Now the reason I posted is not to simply complain, but to maybe grab the attention of a PFS staff member and make them go "oohhh". I know humans are a blank slate for a writer to quickly build upon. There is no racial traits to deal with or have to factor in. Like I said in my previous post, I know that humans are the most populated race. I just looking for PFS to strive to balance it out just a little. Of the encounters that will involve a thug, maybe a 30/70 slit on core race/human encounters.

Let me start out by saying that I absolutly love playing Pathfinder and the biggest reason is the way society play is set up. I have never been much of a RPG person until I started in PFS.
A couple of weeks ago I had a new player building a ranger ask me what her first favored enemy should be. Everyone around immediatly said undead. I told her human. It seems that the only non-creature we fight is human. Every thug, brute, henchman or evil minion is human. Yes, there are a few exceptions (maybe 5 out of the 90ish scenarios), but as a whole, its only human. I know that humans are the dominate race in Golorian, but for them to be the only core race that can be a thug is just a little boring. There are elves, dwarfs, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs in Golorian also. It is kinda hard to believe that none of these races can lower themselves to the level of a thug. Even most of the bosses seem to be human also.
So, I guess all I am asking is a little more variety on the races of our enemies.