JohnF's page

Compromised - (pre)ordered a second Wayfinder, but we're sharing one set of Aeon stones.

The following text is found on Lorespire:

All agents who have gone on at least 2 missions are awarded a free wayfinder, available by downloading the Wayfinder boon in the Achievement Points Boon store (Boons tab of My Organized Play).

This might lead a player to look in the section entitled "Boons Purchasable with Achievement Points".

Unfortunately there are no Wayfinders to be found there - they are instead to be found in the section entitled "Boons Purchasable with Game Rewards".

I'm pretty sure they *could* all be played with one character, but not without playing a lot of other stuff as well.
(Note, too, that this would almost certainly require playing the scenarios in something other than the order of their release)

Well, at least I've got until early 2022 to think about this.

But my first impression is that a lot of our players have already paid multiple times for the same content (physical products and/or PDFs from Paizo, integration with HeroLab, Roll20, etc., etc.), and have become used to a particular style of play for their online gaming.

Expecting them to pay yet again for yet another product format is going to be a hard sell.

And, quite honestly, I really dislike one of the concepts that demiplane seem to push as a feature - the ability for players to rate (and even reward) GMs and other players.

We'll address any issues as they arrive - it's far too early to know exactly what problems we will face, let alone decide what will be the best course of action to deal with any issue with the least disruption.

We do anticipate continuing to offer online games for some time. Until we're back to most venues offering regular face-to-face gaming we won't know what player base we are serving - not everyone participates in online games. One thing we do know is we won't be going back to the situation as before - not all of our venues are returning, and some of those that are have either moved to a different location or changed their policies (charging for tables that were previously free-to-play, for example). We know from past experience that even a small table fee (even if returned as store credit) does constitute a significant barrier for some players.

Just because a game is public doesn't mean we have to let anybody sit at the table with no other conditions.

Back in the days of (almost) everything being face-to-face gaming we still had requirements. In our area we expected players to sign up for the games rather than just showing up at the store and demanding a seat. And when a player did sign up, we expected them to show up. If they had to pull out less than a day before the game we asked that they inform the coordinator and/or the GM directly as well as signing out.

We also required players to be respectful of the other people at the table. Players exhibiting abusive or threatening behaviour, cheating, and suchlike would be asked to stop it. That was almost always enough, but if it wasn't then there was the option of refusing to seat that player.

And, finally (and possibly most germane to this topic) there was the problem of what to do with stores where there were regularly more players signed up than there were GMs for. The first step to solving this problem is to point out to the players that they have a way to solve this for themselves - one of them could always sign up to GM.

Add another one who has been on subscription for everything PACG-related since day one. That means I've got my own copies of every base set and associated adventure decks, every class deck, etc. I've also got all the accessories (playmats, etc.), all the Free RPG Day promo characters (plus all the other promo cards as well - they came with the subscription).

In addition I've been running PACS in stores since season 0, so I've got an additional copy of all of the old base sets courtesy of Paizo. For the new Core+Curse sets I did even better - I've got two complete sets of those that Paizo provided before the product actually released; I had official permission from Paizo to run demonstration games at my local convention on the weekend the new version made its debut at PaizoCon!

It doesn't stop there, either. I've got the Drive-Thru cards for errata (and multiple sets of the We Be Heroes! characters), Broken Token inserts for all my own base sets (and for some of the Paizo-provided ones), enough sleeves for all the box sets (plus more than 20 packs of the PACG sleeves which my wife and I use to sleeve characters), a total of about about 100 class decks or expansion decks - I generally used to have around 20 decks with me to lend to walk-up players who wanted to try out the game, or to regular players who wanted to try out a new character build - five Adventure Chests, and a whole stack of Really Useful boxes, Ultra-Pro clear deck boxes, etc. to keep everything vaguely organized.

I haven't actually added up how much I've spent on the game over the years, but it's probably close to $4000. Not that I regret it for one minute - looked at as cost-per-hour for enjoyment it's been well worth it! I'd happily buy more product if it were available ...

Edit: I forgot to mention the Iconic Heroes promo cards - I've got two or more of each of of those, too.

And, of course, we wouldn't be reading this blog if it wasn't for Auntie Lisa ...

Time to break out the old boxes one more time.

Oh, more than just one more time, I hope.

I've just started two new games - Mummy's Mask (the in-box storyline), and one of the third-party adventure paths.

We play hybrid - my wife and I play using a physical box, but the other players play over Discord (audio, with optional video). Much of the game state (locations, displayed cards, etc.) is tracked in TTS by one player, so everybody else can see it. Characters are hybrid, too - either the in-box characters or PACS-style with class decks.

I was hoping to do a run through the in-box Runelords adventure with an all-goblin party, but that group decided to run the third-party scenario instead. But if anyone reading this thinks that sounds like something you would be interested in just PM me ...

I have no problem with whoever wants to run the game as a home game doing so in the privacy of their own home. And I have no problem with Paizo publishing the Adventure Path (especially considering the content warnings that come along with the content).

But as a PFS convention organizer I wouldn't want to have this content being offered at a PFS table where anybody could sign up to play; there is subject matter that would definitely not be considered appropriate by the parents of some of our minor children players. Nor would I consider the only tool that might have been made available to me - limiting the GMs allowed to run it by the number of stars/novas/glyphs they have - adequate.

I don't want to be put in the situation of having to ask parents for signed permission for their minor children to play at a PFS game. And even that isn't really sufficient - what goes on at the table is easily heard by people at the next table, or by non-players who happen to be in the room. PFS/SFS organized play has a good reputation for providing a family-friendly, open environment, and IMO that's how it should stay.

If we're going to have to run the game in a private room, with a pre-vetted list of players, than this doesn't meet the criterion of a 'public game' which Paizo (and the convention owners) expect me to provide.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Michael.

As a regular con organizer, I know how much work our GMs put into preparing for a table.

We schedule games for a 4-hour play time in a 5-hour slot, but as I'm sure everybody knows games can sometimes run long, too.

That one-hour gap isn't for filling out chronicles; it's for the GM to catch up on things like grabbing a bite to eat, visiting the restroom, or just relaxing for few minutes before preparing for the next table (as either a GM or a player).

If players are going to insist that they have their chronicles filled out in time for the next slot then I'll just have to tell my GMs to call the game before four hours are up so they have time to fill out the chronicle during game time, not in that one-hour break they get between tables.

As far as getting games reported before the next slot (or even in the next 24 hours) - that won't happen, either, unless more of the player base are prepared to step up and offer to take care of that job. I'm often the only person doing the reporting, and I just plain don't have time to report 100 tables during the convention as well as all the other organizer duties. I'd love to have a dedicated three-person reporting team, but that's not a realistic expectation - people pay admission fees, and pay for hotel rooms, to play, not to be admin staff.

I have a problem with the underlying assumption that everybody carries around a device capable of logging in to a website.

I know of at least one player who doesn't have any kind of online presence at all, and several who only have online access if they're at home - they carry neither a laptop nor a smart phone.

There's also another problem as none of the hotels that have hosted our local conventions have public internet access, and even the 'hotel guest' access doesn't cover the parts of the hotel where gaming takes place.
Most of the local game stores don't offer internet access, either.

Note that we're not talking about some minor outpost far from a major city - I'm talking about Silicon Valley, and large (100+ tables of PFS/SFS) conventions.

Jared Thaler wrote:

a major purpose was to reward players and GMs who reported scenarios in a correct and timely fashion.

I'm not seeing how the change counts as a reward in any sense.

As far as I can see, you're punishing the GMs who do NOT report scenarios in a correct and timely fashion. And their players.

That's what I see as the biggest problem with this - it hurts innocent parties (the players).

As a VC, I had some insight in just how common unreported or misreported tables are. I didn't have full information, of course - I don't know how many players never bothered to try and fix reporting errors, or how many problems got fixed before being escalated to VC level. After all, in PFS1 (which is the games system I have most experience with) the players had the paper chronicles and boons; those pieces of paper were the official record. Whether or not the game was correctly reported (or even reported at all) wasn't an issue for any but the most detail-oriented players.

Now, though, everything is being made dependent on the online reporting system, Achievement Point tracking, etc. This is not, in my opinion, in a suitable state for anything to depend on - it seems that almost every time you push the "recalculate" button you get different results. And while most GMs I've encountered are prepared to trust their players, that doesn't help if you're trying to purchase a boon that is gated behind a particular ACP total, or a particular scenario. The online system is *not* prepared to trust players - quite the opposite.

If GMs (who are, in the main, among our most regular players) can't depend on the online reporting system working properly, they aren't likely to be highly motivated to get their information into the system in a timely fashion. Pleading with them is all very well, but it would have been better to provide them with a digital infrastructure that was working reliably.

I think you're going out of your way to make alchemists pay more to learn a spell or formula than wizards, clerics, etc. for no good reason.

Alchemists are not "bad wrong fun" - don't treat them as if they were.

Rule #1 of copy editing; it should be done by somebody who is new to the document in question, not by somebody who has been working on it for weeks. It's all too easy to read what you subconsciously know is there, rather than looking at what actually is there.

I find FCFS recruiting greatly superior to lottery-style seating.

The whole reason I'm involved in PFS is because I was tired of going to conventions, signing up for a whole bunch of games, and maybe getting into one of them. At least with FCFS seating you know right away if you're going to get into a game, and can plan your time appropriately.

Sigh...crap...more monster PC's Adventures for free RPG Day. :(

Well, at least they're very popular (which is, after all, the point).

Let's face it - it could be "Risen from the Sands II"

Just copying and pasting the text above won't work - the Paizo forums add spaces inside some pieces of text that look like links.

This should work: Red & Black Dragons

Are you the kind of extroverted person who can walk up to a group of strangers and say, "Hey, want to play an awesome game for an hour? I've got this great little gothic adventure that could be fun for your whole group!"

The reason my wife and I are in the Pathfinder community is because Painlord spotted me looking curiously at what was going on in the PFS room at a convention, buttonholed me, and ushered me to a place at a table. (This was before quests were a thing, so that was for a full 4-hour scenario).

That's rarely a problem at our conventions, Hmm - we can almost always find players. It's finding a GM for the walk-ins who want to play a game *now* that's difficult ...

I believe a "random Undead Story Bane" means you roll on the Dragon's Demand Story Bane roster in the "Undead" column.

If so, at level 1 .. Random Undead Story Bane: 1 = Ancient Skeleton, 2 = Wight, 3 = Zombie Minions: 1d3 ⇒ 2 Wight

The RVC needs an override/oversight power, that if they recognize an organizer is intentionally scheduling empty tables in order to manipulate the system, they can shut that garbage down.

They could just trust the organizer initially, and allow them a small pool of discretionary AP to hand out. This would need to be accounted for on the after-action report. Anyone who abused the system would forfeit that privilege.

In the past we've always given the GM any rewards they would have earned had the table fired (and also expected the GM to be available to GM something else, such as quests, if we had a table of walk-ins looking for a game).
That's not as straightforward with AcP.

I would have thought a Weredigo was a monster that could cast invisibility at will.

So, just as you were about to attack it ... Where'd he go?

Tyler just pointed folks to this thread in his part of the "Online Region Resources" Paizo blog, so here I am.

I'm currently in the process of setting up a trial real time PACS game to be run using the PACS Wiki as reference, a Discord voice channel (video optional), and a physical box that the Box Runner (me) can use.
I'll be testing it out with a couple of our local players; if it works, I'll probably add another game open to a wider audience.

If anyone else has already done something like this, I'd be interested in hearing how it went. I'm also open to any suggestions on how to improve the experience.

Ah. Thanks for that correction! That makes it a lot more worthwhile!

Even though we use Warhorn for our convention scheduling, its not accurate enough to use for reporting purposes; quite apart from all the no-shows, last minute changes, etc., it doesn't show any of the walk-ins (which can be as many as 25% of the seats).

Face-to-face Organized Play has been put on hold in the San Francisco Bay Area; we'll be re-evaluating that decision towards the end of the month.

And lastly I specifically pointed out VC as getting free things not everyone. I am well aware most people don't get things for free.

You also seem to think that a VC gets PDFs as some kind of 'reward'.

There's no way Paizo can require a VC to purchase that material. The choice is either to provide free access to everything, or to shift the arbitration process one level further up the tree (which, at the time the decision was originally made, meant up to a Paizo employee).

I am reading the rule book.

Question---if a character needs to fight a monster and she has to use her strength for her combat check and her strength is a d6 and she isn't proficient with weapons can a blessing double her check from d6 to a 2d6 even though she has no special melee skill or anything?

What does the blessing say?

There's a maxim in the card game:
"Cards mean what they say. They don't mean what they don't say."

The rulebook is a resource. It's not meant to be read through once and then ignored - it's the first place you should go to to find an answer to any question you have about the game.

The first thing you should do, though, after looking through the rulebook is to play through the example of play in the rulebook (for the Core set it starts on page 24, and deck suggestions for the characters are on page 29). Follow along as each of the cards named in the example is played, and be sure that you understand exactly what is happening. If you don't understand something, then look for the section of the rulebook that deals with whatever is puzzling you; that should answer your question.

After running through the example you should understand how the turn-by-turn play actually works. At this point you can try running through an actual scenario (following the procedure spelled out in the rulebook from "Getting Started" and "Setting Up", and in the pages that follow).

And, again, if you come across something you don't understand, look for the section in the rulebook that spells out what you should be doing at that point.

Eventually you should get to the end of the scenario. So what should you do then? You should go to the section in the rulebook entitled "After the Scenario". That will tell you about earning rewards, how to rebuild your deck, etc.

And also

We Be Heroes? (Core)

I, too, feel that there is more than enough material in Emerald Spire to support a full 6-adventure expansion.

Beyond that, though, the possibilities are less clear. We've seen that even a single short RPG scenario (such as the Free RPG Day offerings) can be the basis for a four-scenario adventure. That suggests that a three-RPG-scenario story arc (such as Shades of Ice or Quest for Perfection, to name but two) could provide a suitable three-adventure storyline. Other possible candidates could be found amongst the older (32-page) modules.

On the other hand, the core set storyline, Dragon's Demand, is one of the newer, longer (64-page), modules, so perhaps a little more source material might be desirable (although probably not as much as the 96-page volume from each adventure in an RPG adventure path).

What I'd like to suggest would be a level 4-6 expansion based on material from two of the very early Game Mastery modules: J1 (The Pact Stone Pyramid) & J4 (Entombed with the Pharaohs). I suspect quite a lot of the thematic boons and banes designed for Mummy's Mask could be used in such a set. This would have two benefits: it would save some development time, and it would provide a way for people playing adventures using the Mummy's Mask base set to get updated versions of those cards.

Edit: Another Free RPG Day scenario - Risen from the Sands - might also provide some content for use in such an expansion.

I've now got a little more experience with these Adventurer's Packs, so I thought I'd report my findings here.

Last weekend I was running PACG Introductory/Demo tables at a local convention (DunDraCon, in the San Francisco Bay Area). I'd made up a set of Adventurer's Packs, and pre-built five characters for this:

• Harsk (Ranged + Nature)
• Kyra (Divine + Occult)
• Merisiel (Finesse + Alchemy)
• Seoni (Arcane + Support)
• Valeros (Smash + Tank)

I ran tables for anywhere from one to three walk-up players, and every character was chosen at least once. They all seemed to work reasonably well (though only tested at Adventure Level 1, of course).

I also found time over the weekend to take a look at some of my own characters, and see how well they would fare if I were to rebuild them using Adventurer's Packs. That was not quite as successful. In almost every case I found that key boons that I'd chosen for the character were not available in the Adventurer's Packs, so I'd either lose a lot of what made that character concept work or I'd have to keep at least the original class deck (and even, in some cases, the ultimate deck as well).

That's not really surprising - the Adventurer's Packs only have about one third as many different cards as there are in all the old class/ultimate decks, so even if one was not limited to just three of the Adventurer's Packs there would still be less options available.

I've done the job.

With two packs you have a few issues.
Example: just looking at Core (don't need to review all old characters), you can't build level 0 Sajan.
He needs 7 blessings to start with and any pack has a max of 3.

Sajan, however, is the only character that has this problem.

In truth, you can get decent decks out of almost any two combinations if you're pre-picking characters.

That does indeed seem to be the case. Even the least productive pairings (Ranged+Finesse & Ranged+Tank) can build starter decks for 25% of the 160+ possible characters, while Divine+Anything starts off at close to 50%, with the most versatile pairing (Divine+Finesse) letting you build an initial deck for 95% of those characters.

I'm considering getting some brightly-coloured 1/4" dot stickers.
When somebody acquires one of the cards out of my box I could:

• 1) Unsleeve the card and set the sleeve aside
  
• 2) Put a sticker on the card, if necessary (just above the deck identifier glyph)

At the end of the scenario I have a pile of empty sleeves showing how many acquired cards I need to get back, and the cards themselves should be readily identifiable by the stickers.

[I will look at the core character equivalent character deck. If I own that deck and an ultimate, then I can use 3 pacs. For example, If I want to use Fumbus, I can use 3 pacs if I already own the alchemist class deck and an ultimate deck. Cool.

I think you can do that even if you don't own any class or ultimate decks - you can just take the three "Adventurer's Packs" you want to use. (There are some exceptions to this if a character needs a specific named card, but that isn't the case for Fumbus).

Any of the PACS-specific supporters are to be found in the storybooks. If you print those out on cardstock there's no real need to have proxies (AFAIK you never need more than one of any supporter, although you do need to keep track of who has access to the supporter, and also who has taken which supporter feats). Using (possibly sleeved) cards makes it a great deal easier to shuffle the supporter stack - shuffling sheets of paper isn't easy.

Once we get the last storybook for Season 6 I'm planning on putting together a PDF of all the supporters for my own use (plus, probably, a tracking checklist sheet to include with each character).

It was clarified that "core assumption" didn't mean you could use things from the books without owning them - it just meant you could assume your GM was familiar enough with the contents of the books that you didn't have to provide a copy at the table for the GM to reference.

I would argue that 2nd is more accessible than 1st. Looking from the outside, PFS 1st edition was intimidating to break into, for many reasons. Maybe even a bit insular as a result. There were so many things you had to "know" or "do" to break in, that unless you were already organized into it, it was not something that, in my experience, a person could just walk into casually and try out. That was my experience anyway. Again, outside looking in.

2nd edition changed that for me, and I think new people sense that too.

By the time PFS2 came along PFS1 was, indeed, complex enough to be more than a little intimidating for a new GM. But that was because it has had over a decade of growth, a lot of which added new rules and complications.

Back when I found PFS around 8 years ago it was a lot simpler - if you knew your way around the core rulebook (and maybe the advanced players guide) you could probably GM most scenarios without running into a situation you couldn't handle. It wasn't long before I started GMing at a local game store, and a year (and one convention) later I had my first GM star.

Now, though, even with eight years of PFS experience, I find myself far more likely to end up outside my comfort zone. A lot of the added material (Unchained, Occult, Intrigue, ...) has introduced whole new rules subsystems. And that's just in the main rulebooks - if you add in all the Campaign Setting and Player Companion soft-cover books there's far too much material to expect a GM to know it all.

Paizo made an attempt, a few years ago, to lower the GM entry barrier by introducing the 'Core' campaign. I don't know about other parts of the world, but in our local area it seemed to be used more to allow the same old GMs and players another chance to replay scenarios than to introduce newcomers to PFS.

PFS2 is new, and only has a couple of rulebooks for the GM to learn. Paizo have also learned something about rule systems in the last decade, and the underlying architecture seems to be built to be more cleanly extensible. Even so, I expect that ten years from now it too will be showing signs of strain. But that's a long way off.

Hmm. I'm two scenarios shy of completing SoPT - I might want to see if I can finish those off so I can get that reward for Quinn.

Quinn also really benefits from the "Investigator's Lamp" promo card.
That one I do have.

You can't really schedule a 6-slot module at a convention, at that point some of those people are basically playing a homegame for the whole Con and waving to people passing their table.

We can, and do, schedule multi-day modules at our conventions.

We just played this (both parts) over the weekend (at tier 14-15).

The characters had all run through Eyes of the Ten (everyone had succeeded, though not all had earned VC rank; two, of which mine was one, had missed out by one PP).

What have I been telling you for years?

That said, if you feel strongly that it should be in the game, you should definitely play that way. That's why I wrote both the rule and then this blog :)

Unfortunately that's not an option for Organized Play.

If something like this is seen as having merit, and being attractive to a significant number of players, it needs to be an official option, not a house rule. Saying "you can't do this in organized play" isn't going to prevent players from playing that way - it just means they're going to switch to home games (or give up PACG altogether). It's hard enough to get Organized Play running at the best of times - we don't really need additional ways to turn potential players away.

Discounts as a whole appeared to be broken.

In my pending subscription order (#8180044),
and the sidecart order included with it (#7914022),
almost every item has the wrong discount applied.

I've described this in more detail in a thread on the Customer Service subforum