MrBear's page

MrBear wrote:

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Did I offend you in some way? If so, I am sorry, I did not intend to.

I'm honestly offered that this discussion is happening. 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 want any organized play system to be as inclusive as possible. I never want to have to turn away a player for any reason besides their personal behavior.

I completely understand the need and desire to limit replays in an active campaign. I don't disagree with it and support it. If we're running adventures as they're released and the pace is steady then the only situations we'd run into are when people have been playing several times a week. At that point I encourage them to try running a game or two.

When the campaign is functionally over and the new content is gone I feel that harsh replay restrictions are an exclusionary practice. You're not saying "Come back next time for the new scenario." You're saying "You can't play here." I won't be happy with any result that asks me to exclude players. I'll burn my pathfinder books and stop running the system before I turn a player away from a finished campaign.

It's why I've mostly stopped posting in this discussion (though I still follow along). I think what's best for the campaign is worthless compared to what's best for the players.

One issue I see with expanding the earned replays is that it's expanding the paperwork requisite. We want to play games, not file taxes. I honestly prefer something global for the ease of use and tracking simplicity. A full reset, an unlocked character, or even (my least favorite) releasing seasons a second time creates an easy and simple to follow system. Adding in additional paperwork on top of characters that killed a tree each already seems unnecessary.

And it appears that other posters aren't understanding our view on this.

Spoiler Warning: People can disagree with your opinion while understanding it.

Also, you're entirely against replay, a flag you're waving around proudly. I understand the potential compositional difficulties entailed but I think it doesn't much matter, especially since many of your complaints are a bigger problem without replay.

Most folks who are in the positron of having too much played have some level of regular group. If they didn't, they wouldn't have so many competed scenarios. These groups can easily coordinate if need be.

Your concern about the all barbarian table shouldn't be weighed against a normal table. It needs to be weighed against a table that didn't fire because they didn't have enough warm bodies to play. This is an attempt at letting more people sit down at the table, and that lets it happen. You might not have the ability to pick and choose whichever character but that's not what you're arguing. You're arguing against replay altogether yet claiming that this particular replay is too restrictive.

And let's say you sit down with three other strangers. If this strangers aren't locked out of the adventure they can play whatever they like. if they are, they weren't playing otherwise.

You're pretty much pointing a finger saying "This isn't perfect so we should have nothing." That's not constructive in the least.

I'm a big fan of the seasonal favored character. It's distinctly limiting but in a predictable way that you can plan around. It enables a group to make a favored team and adventure together for a full year. If you play at half speed that gives you 24 low tier games.

And you're still under some restrictions. You can't replay a million games with a million characters. You still care about group comp. And even if the character ends up being the perfect loot machine it's one character, not an entire stable.

Also, that list of modules seems like its less, by half, than a single season of PFS. So not sure how that shows there is plenty to play in AL.

There's close to 250 scenario equivalents and 12+ AP equivalents.

Interestingly, there have been an announcement recently that the 8th Season of 5ed AL would make major changes to the way EXP and magic items are rewarded. The changes make AL behave a lot more like PFS now.
XP is being change to a fix number of games. Gold reward is no longer decided by the GM, but a fix number and magic item reward is based on the number of hrs played by the character. Characters can use the number of hrs played to "purchase" magic items off certain tables.
I guess they must have realized that the current AL is very chaotic and not in a good way.
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Just so folks aren't accidentally misled, You're actually linking to a thread full of speculation. Everyone is trying to guess what the upcoming changes might be. Nothing has been announced.

I guess I'm not sure what problem we are trying to solve here.

I Had this discussion with a local VA today.

We have a player locally who has 8 tier 3-7 adventures left to play. At the end of season 10 he'll only be able to pay 2nd edition games. We can either tell him to stay at home every other week and alternate the player, weaken our player base, and cause unnecessarily frustration,cr we can find a way to let people pay the game. If we play gatekeeper because someone claims replay ruined classic rock then we're driving players away.

At this rate, we'll get The War For The Crown by the second year of 2nd!

Every time I come here to try to post something, I'm finding the needlessly hostile responses from the League Of Replay Prevention make it so difficult to try to participate in this discussion that I instead just close the window. I would be sad to see the argument lost in the back of caving to bullying.

I believe pjrogers and Joe will understand when I speak of a small proportion of players who will take their foreknowledge of a particular scenario and either backseat GM or play everyone else's character, something that will likely drive those new players we are trying to gain away. This should highlight the need to act gingerly, as that is bad gaming. And I believe we have seen how bad gaming is worse than no gaming locally in the past both near and distant.

If the issue is that certain specific players cause problems then the obvious solution is to address the problem players, not legislate around them. "This idea is difficult to implement because a certain jerk will cause problems" should instead be "This player is toxic and drives other players away. What can we do about this?" The player is the problem, and while preventing replays might solve the most egregious issues that player is STILL toxic and is still hurting play in the region.

You're not the only one disappointed. I'm not sure if it's just the result of bad experiences with the adventure but it's just left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm not at all looking forward to it. I dunno, maybe I'm burnt out with it after playing thrice and running it twice. If I don't end up running in that slot I'll probably find anything else to do instead.

In society play, it calls out that the mass of vegetation is a legal target for Breath of Life, and that if you scoop up enough of it then it's a valid target for raise dead. It's simple, easy, and ports over to a home game pretty simply.

I'm going to insist here that I _do_ think that if this decision is handled correctly, there should still be PFS1 games being registered for credit in 8-10 years. We need to look just not at the short term of 2-3 years, but longer than that. And the only way to do this is to be very generous with replay.

This is what we're looking for. Pathfinder was originally the game for people who didn't want to adopt the New Edition. I truly believe many, if not most, of these players will eventually make their way over to the new edition if you let them move at their own pace. Telling them "You've run out of content," or "You can only play once a month when scenarios line up" wilt upset and frustrate them. You don't want to alienate your long term players. You want them to feel welcome. You want them to have the ability to keep playing their game and keep the invitation open to join the new one.

The majority of the arguments against allowing replays are backed by the suggestion that the campaign is going to die in two years, and Replay will make it die quicker. If you're writing off the campaign already then your view is too short term for this discussion. You're planning on being out in two years. The people having this conversation should be the ones who want it to reach out five, eight, ten years. This discussion is for them. It's not about trying to mollify people who are threatening to quit in a year worst case and planning to retire in two best case. If you decide to quit early so others can play for an extra decade? That's a trade worth making every day.

Gregory Rebelo wrote:

Hey, I still want to run the damn thing!

:)

Well, the other 5-star GM already offered 3 or so tables at my store, so I think you'll have to do it at yours. :)

I'm absolutely certain the reason the tables didn't fire have nothing to do with any lack of desire to play them...

I never understood the fascination with catfolk anyway.

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I wouldn't care personally if it wasn't for Prowler at World's End, which looks like fantastic fun. Sometimes fun mechanics are locked behind these boons.

Yup, it’s that one. I was trying to avoid naming it to avoid possible spoilers, but I suppose it’s no big deal.

I definitely agree that it’s buried kind of deep in there. In one of the tables I played with my partner, I actually went fishing for the info and had it ignored. In the final table mentioned I had to explain what was meant by it to the GM. I’m not angry about it or anything, but I can understand the disappointment at feeling like you’re almost seeing some real representation but having it skipped over.

Though I do understand some folks being extra careful about it. I saw posts on reddit, other forums, etc, where people were up in arms that pathfinder dare have representation. Miss Feathers is such a polarizing character. Tucking it away would help let the character exist without drawing too much attention. I can understand it, even if I don’t agree with it.

So definitely want to be clear that the emotion here is disappointment, not anger or frustration.

Good day folks! I'm looking to complete the requirements for the merfolk boon. I need one more race boon from ratfolk, gripli, vanara, or samsaran. Im open to trading combinations of the following boons and could potentially get a second sea elf/skum/merfolk boom if that is of more interest. I prefer e-mailing then sending the physical copy. Let me know if anyone is interested.

Message sent

MrBear wrote:

It's become painfully clear that you hate Race Boons. You've been very vocal about it through multiple threads. You're against unlocking races via PP. I'd like to know what would make you happy with regards to uncommon and rare races.

Do you want rare races gone entirely? Do you want unlimited access to races? Should they be somehow gated? What sort of options are we missing that might be a better solution?

On the OP:
I think having an Option to sirens prestige for unlocks isn't necessarily the worst idea, but I'm concerned that folks with "harder" local groups will have a disadvantage to folks with softer groups. Some games will be more demanding, requiring more prestige expenditures to get by. It introduces an element of table variation, and ancestry so far has been kept to a volunteer reward, not an in game unlock.

I do not care for Race Boons EDIT: Hate is too strong a word. Just because I'm passionate about the topic, doesn't mean I don't understand the reasoning behind the existence of them, as a necessary evil., because it gives a negative message to folks who are wanting to join the campaign that the money they spent on Paizo Pathfinder product was wasted until they 'jump a hurdle' that they may have not known was there to begin with.

I didn't start play until the time after the favored race I prefer to play was 'unlocked' for general use, thankfully.

If I had sat down at my first table to play PFS and was told "Oh, do you have a Boon for that" and my blank response earned a "Here's a nice shiny pregen for you to play" that probably would have been my last PFS table, in all honesty.

Rare races should be rare.

Uncommon races should be uncommon, and I wouldn't be adverse to a *limit* of a number of characters that a given player may have of a given race.

If Campaign Leadership came down, and for example said "Ye shall only have two tengu characters under normal circumstances in your character roster" then that'd be fair, imo....

Thanks for the well thought out reply. I've been having a hard time trying to see your viewpoint but between this and another recent reply I feel like I'm really understanding your issues, and I'm finding myself swayed by your arguments.

Where it is not good is where players are saving their money for the 'res' fund or whatnot.

Starting characters 'in the hole' to play an Ancestry makes it a bit difficult for said Ancestry.

This would probably have a detrimental effect on the willingness of Society members to buy consumables that may benefit teams 'in the field' if they are 'saving up for their Assimar'.

While it seems like it would be a decent way to handle it, how does it address the *brand new* player that just sat down at say, a convention, and wants to play their Ratfolk Ancestry character.

Do they get a pass?

Do they get told "Oh, well, first you need to play all this other stuff before you can get a Ratfolk"?

Does making it 'P(l)ay To Win' make the Society more inclusive or more exclusionary, as those who have the means to play a *lot* more have many options to acquire a different Ancestry, whereas the individual that may only be able to from sheer RL obligations might only be able to get it in the space of five years?

Any player who has had a character death is more than likely going to be banking that PP to make sure said character doesn't die, once essentials to promote survival are acquired.

I know I don't have a bunch of characters sitting around with huge PP 'slush funds', at least?

However, as a possible ammendment to look at the idea, what if it's a 'set number of PP spent during a given time increment unlocks a certain group of races for the entire Society' Explore, Report, Cooperate with the race groups available put up to a vote by the Society members?

I want to like this idea, but right now based on my PFS1 play, my characters would never have gotten to the races they are at if they had to pay a PP 'unlock' fee.

...and I'd probably have indulged my WoW addiction or given up on gaming entirely if the race I'm particularly keen on wasn't available.

It's become painfully clear that you hate Race Boons. You've been very vocal about it through multiple threads. You're against unlocking races via PP. I'd like to know what would make you happy with regards to uncommon and rare races.

Do you want rare races gone entirely? Do you want unlimited access to races? Should they be somehow gated? What sort of options are we missing that might be a better solution?

On the OP:
I think having an Option to sirens prestige for unlocks isn't necessarily the worst idea, but I'm concerned that folks with "harder" local groups will have a disadvantage to folks with softer groups. Some games will be more demanding, requiring more prestige expenditures to get by. It introduces an element of table variation, and ancestry so far has been kept to a volunteer reward, not an in game unlock.

MrBear wrote:

Tallow wrote:

I want to address the other aspect of MrBear's post as well.

You can't say "The campaign will be dead in two years" and "Replay will kill the campaign." It's one of the other. Ad's if it's dying anyway, the only people you hurt by denying replay are the few people who still want to play.

They're contradictory statements, and both beliefs lead to opposing conclusions. Two years from now, the majority of us will be happily playing v2 and the only thing stopping the die hard fans from continuing to play v1 like they want to is people who no longer play the campaign telling them they're having the wrong kind of fun.

The only thing stopping diehard fans from continuing to play v1 is the idea that they must get credit to play adventures.

And this impacts you enough to argue against post retirement replays because...?

Edit: I'm worried I might be getting combative so I'll be stepping away fruition the discussion for a few days to make sure I'm coming at the issue properly.

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Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

I'm curious as to which loving campaign in the past allowed people to continue playing content after the retirement of the campaign and how it ruined the already retired campaign.

I want to address the other aspect of MrBear's post as well.

You can't say "The campaign will be dead in two years" and "Replay will kill the campaign." It's one of the other. Ad's if it's dying anyway, the only people you hurt by denying replay are the few people who still want to play.

They're contradictory statements, and both beliefs lead to opposing conclusions. Two years from now, the majority of us will be happily playing v2 and the only thing stopping the die hard fans from continuing to play v1 like they want to is people who no longer play the campaign telling them they're having the wrong kind of fun.

Strangely, my region has zero conventions this time of year despite being flooded August through March.

But if someone is up for trading one, I'm sure I can find something worth your time.

About transphobia. Let's say paizo writes in a non binary/gender fluid whatever npc. But the DM just introduces it as a female character and refers all session to it as a she. The players don't know about how the npc is written so they don't notice anything wrong until a few weeks later one of them reads about that npc being mentioned on the forum. Noone got hurt or offended, I mean, noone even noticed, but I'm guessing it's still against the community rules?

My nonbinary partner played a particular scenario where the primary NPC was trans three times before the third GM was the first to not just ignore all information in the scenario involving that aspect of the NPC. The only reason it even came up the third time is because I forced the issue, and the GM admitted he didn't realize that the character was trans. My partner was both excited to have the chance to see characters like this in a scenario and incredibly disappointed that, in THREE plays it was ignored three times.

Neither he nor I are trying to deny you or anyone else the chance to play. But we are against opening the campaign up to what will kill it faster than it will already die.

I find the presumption that this is a Truth to be absurd. Many times, from many people, these words are spoken as though they were gospel. You then hear these people explain that they've seen campaigns ruined by this, and that it will be the death knell...

It already is the death knell, friends. The campaign is ending. You're preaching from a high horse that people who are going to stop playing already are going to give up the game, and that you'd prefer the game to fizzle in two years than allow people who want to keep playing the opportunity to do so.

I've not come close to the point where replays l unlimited replays matter. I doubt I ever will. I've got friends sitting or, again, this Saturday because they cannot play in any of the three games offered. I watch locals being forcibly left out of a game, and I can see the situation only getting worse. Then I come on here and see others proudly stating "This is fine."

It's not fine.

Have: Vine Leshy

Want: Aasimar

Vine Leshy boons exist? Desperately interested.

But we keep a lot of spreadsheets of who's already got credit in what so we can try to schedule something that works for everyone.

If the system for people trying to play a game that's no longer being supported requires "a lot of spreadsheets" to function I think it's time to seriously reconsider of the "benefits" significantly outweigh the work required.

Zach Davis wrote:

Boons that offer rebuilds would likely be very useful as we try and figure out a new system. Especially for GMs who may level to lvel 2 or beyond without actually playing a character to test it out.

If they've never played the character, they can make it whatever they want.

And then you sit down to play it and boom, you're stuck with it forever. There's no rebuild wiggle room.

To the original topic, maybe GM boons could have certain global unlocks. "When you use this, all your characters now have access to deity X." Maybe that alongside a small static bonus, like "You get a +2 diplomacy with hellknights. You can make a hellknight order of the duck character." Access to unusual materials maybe?

Point is: people have 1st edition boons. Question is whether that should have an impact on 2nd edition.

If someone’s stance is that they should be worthless because it is not fair that boons are used to get people to GM at cons that is fine with me, but I don’t see the use of rehashing why it is fair or not that boons are handed out that way in this tread.

When the crux of many arguments for the keeping of convention boons is "I spent hundreds of dollars, traveled thousands of miles, and took a week off of work to spend 40 hours running adventures for strangers," You're naturally going to have some discussion on the nature of acquisition.

Tallow wrote:

While I know that there are several people who feel like restricting race boons to Convention GM'ing is a problem, I'm not sure that the Campaign leadership feel the same way.

If they don't see it as a problem, I think that's a shame. The current state of affairs seems to indicate:

1) The campaign leadership sees convention play as more important than non-convention play.

2) They see people who GM at conventions as more deserving of a reward than those who GM in non-convention settings.

Now, they probably don't literally believe this but that this is the message sent by their actions.

While I agree that race boons might be more easily accessible, I have been to approximately eight conventions in the past year and Every. Singlet. One. had issues with filling their GM slots. I was able to pick up tables the week before the event in many cases, and in some cases there was enough interest that additional tables were created on the fly.

Meanwhile, at our local three table a week venue, thanks to the RSP we have a rotating GM schedule to make sure everyone who wants a table can get one. I know anecdotes aren't evidence, but from my experiences finding local volunteers is far easier than drumming up convention volunteers, and that's with exclusive race boons included.

And that is exactly why I'd like to see race boons carry over in some manner. If I went to a small two day convention to earn one, I'm likely paying $50 for entry, $150 for one night in a hotel, running two slots (out of my potential five to play), and struggling to hunt down a copy of the scenario (i've not once received a scenario for a game I was running at a con). This experience is different enough from weekly play at the LGS that folks aren't lining up to do it.

That's why people are rewarded more for convention games: people who are spending the time and money attending a con would prefer to play. There are fewer volunteers so they need to bribe people. It's not an issue of value, it's an issue of scarcity. This scarcity will not be helped if the boons earned don't carry over in some way.

I'm expecting a significant drop in volunteers between GenCon and GenCon unless something is in place for a transfer or 2nd edition bonds are being given out at cons in the meantime.

Give me a boon that I can actually use and don't make it public 6 months later. Especially if I put ALL of that time to travel, prep, etc to earn it. Now my boons are useless, as everyone has them. So what did I really get? Early access? Really thats a cheap shot. So I get a boon, then to make it worth it I have to use it then. So I can't even wait to see other material. If I wait then everyone else uses it. Then if they decide to change the races for season 10 I have limited use with the boon. So yes that was a poor decision no matter how you look at it.

But many will agree, maybe not on the forums but I have talked to several people who were pissed with the elemental races. Also the Oread was NEVER offered in Colorado so getting the Suli was damn near impossible. There...

While I don't agree with a lot of what you've had to say I definitely sympathize with the frustration involved with the elemental races. In fact, I'd suggest that the current concerns with the edition shift strongly mirror your past frustration. You worked to obtain a special bonus, spending time and money to unlock something cool, and shortly thereafter the benefit you worked for was taken away.

This is exactly what people are feeling now. Their hard work and expenditures gave them a reward that now feels worthless. They're feeling now exactly how you were feeling then... And nobody liked this feeling. You might want to consider how similar you are to folks you're arguing with. I'm sure there are ways to help everyone come out happy in the end.

My suggestion would be a modified form of option 4.

If something like this is not implemented, we are sentencing PFS1 to a slow death. .

That's already happened. What we're trying to do here is slow that down as much as possible

The new iconic alchemist is a goblin, and as such will likely be the pregen alchemist.

I'm not looking forward to the disruption the new endless wave of goblins will cause. There are already people who specifically play gnomes and halflings with the sole intention of seeing what they can get away with. Putting goblins in their hands makes me sad.

There are no FALLACIES with what I am saying. You haven't found any fallacies, because there aren't any. THEY ARE OPINIONS. It is a matter of perception. You see what you want. I see what I want. More people I have talked to agree with my view on them being separate and boons are not transferable between editions. I have talked to plenty of people who see it one way or the other.

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Do you not understand All or Nothing? You seem to skip over that. Don't pick and choose. They are starting fresh for a reason. So START COMPLETELY FRESH. So how bout you leave this alone. I though you would have...
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This is actually a very common fallacy, even if you want to call it an opinion. You're presenting two extremes and declaring only one or the other is valid. There's a billion possible solutions that fall somewhere in between, regardless of your opinion.

You earned those boons while playing 1st edition. So therefore they should ONLY be used during 1st edition. From what I have seen, they are not the same. If you allow the Boons, then why not allow feats, characters?

Firstly, these boons were earned not by playing but by donating time to prep and run, and often times by spending a not insignificant amount of additional resources (travel and lodging, vacation days, honey-do points, child care, etc) in order to ensure other players have a table at which to play. Your "different campaign, different boons" argument is perfectly cromulent. So is "I donated significant time and resources to make sure the convention was staffed." Is it wrong for people to all that their dedication in some way translate to the new system?

Secondly, there is no way the boons would be "left the same." Almost every suggestion has involved trading in old race boons towards some kind of benefit in the new edition. You appear to be arguing against allowing the old boons to be directly used in the new system (which is a straw man fallacy: your arguing against something no one has suggested).

Thirdly, we come to the false equivalence fallacy. You're arguing that a boon allowing you additional options at character creation is functionally identical to using an entire character sheet from another edition. A slip of paper that says "You can play a tiefling" is far easier to translate to a new edition, where it might instead read "You may choose the tiefling ancestry." Translating an entire character, including feats that might have literally no effect or interact with rules that no longer exist, is several magnitudes more complex.

MrBear wrote:

If it's opened up to all purchases there's no real reason to sell your purchases, as you can just get what you want in the first place

Currently in PFS1 items bought with PP have a resale value of 0. Are you suggesting that they'd have a resale value of 100% (if bought at least partially with PP?).

It'd make PP definitely mean something, and it could reflect 'returning gear in good condition' for an 'upgrade'?

What I'm saying is that IF we open up prestige for any purchase at a specific conversion rate then PP is being treated as cash already. Demanding a resale value of 0% seems unnecessary in that case, as the only difference is that it's spent in predetermined blocks. Treating it as if it was still a vague 'other' currency becomes silly .

Personally, I would like to see Prestige used, probably as a spendable currency, to reduce the costs of items found on a Chronicle Sheet. Past the first few levels you never find an expensive item on a sheet that you can't already access except for unique items and ammunition. You just make a shopping list and buy it as you go with your wealth being the real limit on what you can purchase. I recently found a fancy 25k item on a sheet and got excited until I realized my fame threshold was already higher. It immediately made the item less exciting, and I feel far less likely to buy it now that it's just another item.

Using prestige to make items you've found more easily affordable, though, creates a stronger connection to what we've done and what we've found. Instead of rolling our eyes at the +1 Muppet Bane battle axe because it's a lame power on a suboptimal weapon we might decide that, at a significant discount, that it's worth saving several thousand gold to have a unique weapon and the story of stealing the Puppetslayer's Cleaver. You can even ensure that these bonuses won't be found on the optimizers favourites to avoid unintentional creep--if that +2 chain mail is discounted close to the price of +1 breast plate then it might not be wasted ink in the scenario.

That would make for far more interesting sheets, at least I feel it would. Otherwise, just save the space and only include partial wands, unique items and special ammo. No one needs anything else on the sheet.

On the other side of it though, as an added benefit if PP do have 'cash value', then items could be sold at 'used' prices (as long as it's not Starfinder 'used' prices) to defray the cost of said Raise Dead should it be required.

If it's opened up to all purchases there's no real reason to sell your purchases, as you can just get what you want in the first place

Just because you/we feel some rules are OP or “absurd” does not mean we throw the “baby out with the bath water.” If that reasoning is used, then why have anything banned at all? Everyone has their own opinions on what is OP and what isn’t. IMO, we need to keep PFS1 rules in tact as much as possible to maintain the integrity of the campaign. Lots of players have already expressed concerns about certain facets and I expect to see some rules changes when PFS2 launches, but the more PFS1 changes, the less it resembles the campaign we’ve played for a decade. That will increase the number of people who will chose to quit because it feels too much like a new campaign. And if I’m gonna play a new campaign, might as well be PFS2 since it’ll have new product support. Please don’t give those of us with the intention of continuing to play PFS1 any more reasons to reaccess that decision.

I might not have come across exactly what I was wanting to say, and that's unfortunately something that happens sometimes. I'll star going off on an indirect tangent without really explaining the reasoning for the ranting. Let me try to clarify what I want to say.

I'm not trying to argue fur unlimited replay. In fact, I think it could easily become problematic. I think that the argument "Players would cherry pick adventures" isn't a good argument against unlimited replay, yet it's also the argument I see the most. I think it's a symptom of larger issues, and I feel that the more constructive discussion is to focus on other issues. Character power level is already spanning such a wide gap that I feel the difference from hand picked scenarios don't make enough of an impact to be regarded as the go to hot button issue.

Another random tangent: I tend to empathize more with people who WANT to play but CANNOT than I do with people who CAN play but CHOOSE not to. I don't want anyone to quit, so long as they are enjoying themselves. I'd like to see a solution that leaves everyone happy. If, in the end, I'm presented with an option that prevents players from continuing against an option that certain players refuse to play, assuming all else is equal I feel I have to support the inclusive model that offends over the exclusive model that doesn't. Someone upset about a change might change their mind and come back. Someone excluded from playing was never given the choice.

(Yes, I'm looking at an extreme example here, which I'm not saying is going to happen. I'm just trying to explain my thought process here.)

Locally, we have a store that runs three sessions every Saturday. We have players who cannot play on certain Saturdays because everything offered has been played. This situation is going to get worse with the end of new scenarios. I honestly feel that these players need an option.

I like the concept of a character who gets a fresh start. I think this also isn't going far enough. I think a fresh character yearly would be a good solution. You can retire a character playing once a week in half a year, getting a single character as a safety every year so you'll not have to pass on events seems perfectly fair, and you won't be hunting sheets on every character.

I see people throwing fits about cherry picking scenarios and all I can think is "Why care?" There's the principle, which I understand, but is a cherry picked character going to really be worse than some of the absolute nonsense already allowed? We've got characters with 40s on skills art level 6, archers soloing encounters, tetori invalidating encounters, sorcerers with dc 30 take outs, pets twice as strong as an equal level fighter, and all sorts of absurdities. Pretending like having the right chronicles on a character is more disruptive feels disingenuous.

I think you make some useful points here, but I still feel very strongly that non-con (whether it's physical or online cons) GMing and other support for PFS should be rewarded similarly to con GMing and support work.

While I do agree that rewarding work is fantastic (and I think the RSP program goes a long way towards this), an important part of convention rewarded GM boons is to sort of bribe people to run tables at conventions. It turns out that when you ask someone to pay transportation, lodging and entry for a convention in order to volunteer their time running instead of playing you often end up with fewer volunteers and more burn out for those that do help. If there weren't special convention race boons I'm certain the convention play scene would suffer greatly.

Though I do agree, 100%, that rewards should be available for local play. I should have my RSP hit the 12 point mark soon, abs while it isn't the reason I run games it sure feels good getting a bonus for it

I will say that I am probably most interested in the rotating trade in (Option 3).

...

1. It will mostly be limited to the early quarters of PFS2, if at all, and then be done with as the sometimes-GMs-at-Cons people burn through their limited supply of PFS1 boons.
2. Those with enough PFS1 GM boons to never need to GM again to gain boons in PFS2 under this system are the sorts of people who like GMing so much that they'll be doing it anyway.

I like 3 also, as it feels very friendly without being overwhelming.

I'm not sure I like Number 1 above though. Limiting it to "early" converters will draw some frustration from people who might think it's a way to force people to become early adopters.

If there isn't going to be some kind of future for these boons expect convention organizers to struggle to get tables covered. I've already had situations where I've had tables thrust upon me at a convention. Folks getting a piece of paper offering them something with a nine month shelf life this fall will not be excited participants.

Name: The Honorable Lord Viscount Bomba Iaconascu, Esquire
Choice: Senator
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Race: Human
Class: Witch 10
Lion Blade: Yes (joined after the scenario)
Description: A tall and husky Varisian always dressed in the latest fashions, Bomba is most well known for his magnificent mustache (it is both his melee weapon of choice as well as his means of fought). While he is a competent diplomat (his Diplomacy result is always exactly 19) he is far better known for his ability to cow the mightiest of warriors with a glance. Always seen with his two constant companions, a fairy dragon and a talking sword, it's easy to forget the danger the jovial man presents. He'd much rather enjoy s night of relaxing at the tavern, recovering from the stress of managing his Taldan, Varisian and Absalom holdings.

1) Fiend Keeper Medium. It's tons of fun, really flavorful, and all around amazing. I love how it creates such a unique role for a race that's otherwise treated as a third class choice by many players. Having frogs fighting to redeem the darkest of evils is inspiring.

2) Empyreal Sorcerer (and others). I really like archetypes that let you build off of alternate ability scores. Allowing for a wider variety of builds via alternate ability scores really opens up tons of new concepts.

3) Chosen One Paladin. Getting to experience a slightly different progression as you learn to believe in yourself and accept your destiny is cool.

4) Leshy Warden Druid. Leshy friends are amazing. The change of focus from animal to plant is cool too, but leshy.

5) Synthesis Summoner. Only balance it. The concept and aesthetics are amazing and it seems crazy fun to play... Except I can't play it because the current iteration is hyperbolic

It's a common meme that Lawful Evil is the alignment that gets things done. In home games I've found the alignment to be less disruptive than LG, CN and sometimes CG. I understand wanting to keep any of the E out of society but I don't feel like it being disruptive is the right argument against LE.

I think the strongest argument against it is advertising. Parents uncomfortable or unfamiliar with these games may have an issue with the alignment. They may object to letting little Timmy play a bad guy. The focus of society is that they're good guys, opposed by the evil consortium. It can definitely muddy the water.

But disruptions? Paladins and Chaotic Stupid is much worse.

Firstly, I definitely feel that Race Boons should have some sort of carryover. These were rewards for volunteers and it feels like it would both be in bad taste to devalue them and it would make finding volunteers for the next year and a half incredibly difficult. I've already heard GenCon volunteers discussing if they were going to drop out after the announcement.

Secondly, regardless of what decision is going to be made regarding such issues you should probably say something definitive on the matter before you end up in July 2019 with half the base upset either because they used their boons in a flurry or hoarded them and are sitting on a pile of rotted paper.

I'd love to see Purpurrup, the grippli fiend keeper in training, again. The whole grippli fiend keeper mythos, and grippli in general, are amazing. I'd love to see a little more before I have to wait years to get back to them (if ever).

Have: tiefling/Ganzi, Rebuild/Changeling, samsaran, ratfolk, aquatic

Looking for: Catfolk

The only exception to this is if the grappler has progressed to imposing the 'tied up' state. At this point if the DC to escape the grapple exceeds what the target of the grapple can achieve with a natural 20 on a CMB check then they have no escape from the bonds.

The Paizo PRD entry on Grapple under the 'Tie Up' section wrote:

Tie Up: If you have your target pinned, otherwise restrained, or unconscious, you can use rope to tie him up. This works like a pin effect, but the DC to escape the bonds is equal to 20 + your Combat Maneuver Bonus (instead of your CMD). The ropes do not need to make a check every round to maintain the pin. If you are grappling the target, you can attempt to tie him up in ropes, but doing so requires a combat maneuver check at a –10 penalty. If the DC to escape from these bindings is higher than 20 + the target's CMB, the target cannot escape from the bonds, even with a natural 20 on the check.

You're neglecting the line in the deception of rope, which gives a strength DC to break free. That cloud giant might not be able to shimmy free, but he can flex so hard the bindings burst.

I exclusively play society so I'm both excited and nervous. I hate the thought of shelving so many characters, especially ones that have cost multiple boons to play.

Which is why this is a problem that should be addressed. Which is really what MOST of us want out of this. We don't want 500+ posts of bickering about how "I'm right and you're wrong". BNW made it VERY CLEAR that all he wanted was closure, and this is now turned into a dogpile over rules and semantics (for which I have contributed, I do admit).

So let's all just get over the fact that nobody agrees on this and keeping poking Paizo until they address the issue.

Unfortunately, a 500 post dog pile seems to be the only way to attract attention to an issue. Anything smaller doesn't get a nod.

When we played this last night there were several players bothered by the repetition of part one, at least in how characters who've already played that part have to kind of sit bank and pretend they hadn't meet these people before. Ruining the latter parts wasn't as immersion breaking for them, but the mystery part and introduction to the characters involved fell flat on its face.