MrBear's page

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

No.

EDIT:

If the rules of EBIL are codified, then the EdgeLords will camp there, and do 'just' enough to not get EBIL-smacked and scream and holler if they get even looked at if they aren't doing exactly the EBIL things

PFS has several paragraphs on 'be cool to one another'.

GMs should review that, players should review that, and take their notions about morality and ethics from RL to the side while running, respecting their fellow gamers.

This needs to be tattooed on the inside of everyone's eyelids. Seriously, I regularly see GM's who get together to try to figure out ways to screw over various types of player. It can be disheartening.

Guys, maybe take the edition wars nonsense elsewhere? It's as bad as talking politics, and doesn't really belong in this particular forum.

Hillis Mallory III wrote:

I have a Magical Child. At the beginning of the Scenario, when it is just Pathfinders in the room, my social ID (An old male gnome jeweler) hands out contracts to keep his trade secrets about his profession. It happens to include the secret id of the Magical Child (Young girl gnome)

You... you do know that the Transformation Sequence only magically assists with changing into your vigilante identity by making it quicker, and doesn't actually involve any illusion (other than maybe the lights/sounds/theme music) or polymorph effects, right? I mean, even after switching into your vigilante identity, your character is still physically an old male gnome, even if he's trying to disguise himself as a young girl; you'd suffer the -2 Disguise penalty for disguising as a different gender, and a -6 penalty for the three age category difference (Young -> Adult -> Middle Age -> Old).

That would bring the disguise bonus down to a measly +12 before ranks, charisma and modifiers.

What I've been doing is telling my fellow Pathfinders, at the beginning of the adventure, "Hey, I'm not much use in a fight, I'm pretty hands off. If we end up heading to a dungeon, break into a warehouse, or something similar I'll stay back and send some additional support." That way I've established beforehand what to expect. As a taldor nobleman I'm not at all breaking character by not wanting to go into dangerous situations. It's kind of like being a venture captain who is a little more hands on.

It also helps that my vigilante identity is significantly different from my social...

characters have so many weird abilities and situational modifiers that you almost have to tell them what they're being hit with to give them a fair chance to use them.

My favorite is when people can tell what a monster is through a lack of an ability to identify it. "Dungeoneering you say? Must be an elaborate ooze."

This is awesome. Been meaning to try some online play, this is exactly what I needed to get started!

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll make sure to go over the extra options with our players, and that intro boon is amazing. I'm sure our new players will love it.