Search Posts
After a good night's sleep, I finally feel capable to finish this thread. After a brunch with JDDylexia and Iammars, we headed through the TSA checkpoint. Finding a spot to wait for our flights we began to pour through our new Core books and make PFS 2 characters. I had a concept in mind, a tribute to my Shattered Star players/a grim reminder of their deeds. But then, a wild John Compton appeared and started asking questions. Then I asked questions. And the advice was given. Not mechanical advice, but advice like "I feel like you're making him way to qualified" or "Get him an animal companion. Not a horse though, that would be a tough sell." The, with a promise that the character would be back and level 5 for next year's GenCon, we parted ways, I got into a plane to Charlotte with an airsick infant and then hoped on back to Providence from there arriving around 1:15 AM. It was great to see many of you again and meet those of you I knew digitally in the flesh. Gor those ofbuou I met for the first time, I hope to see you again next year. And finally:
And so it ends. After finally playing Live! Exploration! EXTREME! I wandered off for more food, tried to play 2e's 1-01, had to go back up to search for Bill's missing character binder (containing all of his pfs 1 characters and more; always make sure you have everything before you leave folks) and ended up on a mystery review table. What was the mystery? Well, there were no character intros. Our GM had to guess, as an added challenge, what the heck we were playing. I am glad I ended on a scenario that required little brain power for me, because after 5 days of shenanigans I was resorting to weird s%#@ to stay awake. Sleeping in this AM, I woke up to unsign myself up from 1-02. Sorry folks. Now for one last jaunt to the airport!
It is 8:30 AM on Sunday now and man, what a night! After a day spent expounding on the Many Minds of Historia, I readied myself for the last pfs 1 special. After our gracious HQ staff and GM seated our table of seven, we set off to Gallowspire (or the remains thereof). The champion tier was as difficult as advertised, but we managed to get to the end and elected to test our might again the strongest of Tar-Baphon's allies! This AM, I ran my last slot of Many Minds, which will make me a 1 nova/null GM. I had the pleasure of meeting Illmakis, whom I have had many games with on these forums. I wish I wasn't as tired as I am, as I was looking forward to having a longer conversation. Now, to grab a quick bite to eat before helping break down the Sag!
It is day 3 and my voice is only slightly impaired. After a special that saw,among other cool, funny or awesome events, Hmm get recognized and campaign coined (not sure how that's a verb, but we'll deal with that later) I am sitting here waiting for my table to assemble. Wishing that coffee was a more readily available commodity. Did I mention Hmm got a campaign coin? Edit: Also, I'd never had duck that way. Thanks John! (It was really good)
Nice to hear that you had fun Kate! And Janice, a pleasure! It is day 2 of GenCon and the first night with a very small amount of sleep. Yesterday, I GMed for a surprising amount of people who only play at GenCon and don't care for chronicle sheets. Before that I had the pleasure of going over to the GameScience booth in the vendor hall where I was given, along with my purchase of dice, an item of great power, only to be deployed when the pursuing enemy was about a foot behind me; upon use, it would create a hole 27 feet long by 27 feet wide and 27 feet deep. And that's the whole nine yards. Seriously though, GameScience dice are awesome. Cash only! And now to scavange for sustenance. And roasted bean juice. PS: I am also quite happy that my roommates convinced me not to use the main chorus of "Turn Down for What" as my alarm. Bill Unger suggested that to do so would be akin to saying "I wish to spend the first ten minutes of the day in fear for my life". Well put Bill!
Sorry to hear that Rob. Hopefully today pans out better! Here, after looking over the PF2 Core and helping Joe piece together the immensity of it, we snuck downstairs to see if we could crash the slot 0 PF2 with the help of Jordan our penultimate roommate (and VL for Houston). After an eternity awkwardly holding the door, we managed to get in and slot 0 a quest table with Iammars/Jen at the helm. She had run the playtest locally, and killed me. Last night she also killed me/Seelah. And 3/4 of the table. Good to see nothing has changed in that regard. Right now, I am about to set off on a quest for breakfast. Will it be expensive? Will it be palatable? Will I get lost again, in spite of modern technology? The day is young, let's find out!
It is way too early in the morning and I have said goodbye to my cat before stepping out to wait for JDDylexia (Jpe) and Iammars (Jen) and already events conspire to frustrate us. Current highlight? Joe's unfamiliarity with the maze-like structure of Rhode Island's roads. On our way to T.F. Green!
All Thunderlips aside, I think its important to explore other personas in this hobby. Obviously not ones that are disruptive or hurtful to others. Lacking the first-hand knowledge as to how those characters behave should invite introspection into ... well... how those characters behave. Steven, do you remember having to tone down Thunderlips? If so could you describe the mental/social process?
So if someone, or some people, put three other people down and of those only two are attending and have you on your list, does that invalidate the entire list? How does one go about fixing that? Asking for a friend.
If out of the box thinking is what we need here, I think it would be interesting to explore these questions.Nothing out of the box, just the actual time needed to develop the loose notes into a reworked scenario. Which Paizo needs to spend on developing 2E scenarios for launch at GenCon. I agree that the time does not exist with the focus on 2E, but I think that under certain conditions, and with the proper disclaimers and assurances a roughly reworked scenario can be run by a subset of volunteers. Does it mean it can only be run by VCs? VLs? 5 star critters? People who pass a certain test? Is it just impossible? If this conversation goes nowhere and Return to Dralkard Manor remains a pipe dream, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. But since we are being asked what we would like to see, I feel that we can just spitball ideas and see how they might pan out.
Those scenarios were retired by Paizo for specific reasons. A few of them have been reworked by the developers for special/featured use at select conventions they travel to, but not put through the full development pass to make them suitable for public release. The use of these scenarios is beyond the purview of the Gen Con organizing committee. It would require a policy change by the Paizo development team. OK, so they cannot be released to the general public. And there would need to be a policy change by Paizo. So with that in mind, what assurances/conditions would OPF/the volunteers who wish to run these need to provide to get that policy change in effect and run these scenarios? I am certain, based on what I've heard of the past couple multi-table ACG specials, that qualified volunteers can run a scenario based on non-formatted notes. If this is a question that you cannot answer, we should be bringing in someone who can answer it.
Or I know the campaign staff's time is limited, but maybe a special run of retired scenarios like Eye of the Crocodile KingThis is something we’d love to do, and we have tried to get staff to run events for us for years. The simple truth is they are extremely busy at Gen Con. There are seminars to panel, industry meetings to attend, and most importantly the booth. It takes a lot of time to get through the booth with our purchases and that’s with virtually all staffers working all the time. Now think about what it’ll be like if we take staffers away from them? It’s also difficult to expect them to run a game for five hours after they have worked the booth all day. They use their free time much like we do; reconnecting with old friends, demo new games, shop the vendor hall, or maybe just catch some needed sleep. Remember Gen Con for us is a vacation. For Paizo staffers it’s work. Alright, so then here's a followup to that: why are these scenarios gated specifically behind Paizo staff? What needs to happen so that they aren't gated to be only run by Paizo staff and instead by some tranche of OPF volunteers? What would the requirements be to be admitted as part of those who can run these scenarios? If out of the box thinking is what we need here, I think it would be interesting to explore these questions.
Bob, has any thought been given to sanctioned module runs? Or is OPF concerned that the nature of convention play (meeting all sorts of new people, not necessarily the best group composition, heaven forbid two personality types clash at the table) make such an offering a hazardous proposition that isn't in the best interest of all involved? I don't know what might help with PSA, I do not have the insight needed for that aspect of OP even though I think its pretty cool (although perhaps, and this is based on what observations I had two years ago, a wider offering of scenarios? Frostfur Captives is a lot of fun and a great scenario for that age group, but it seemed that apart from that one there weren't many others; is there an issue identifying scenarios that are good candidates?) What I can opine on is overnights. While I have not experienced them at Gen Con, I have played at one such table at Total Con a few years back. I don't believe that there was anything wrong with myself, the table or the GM, but by the time we were halfway through I was so tired I couldn't make sense of what the heck I was supposed to be doing, in a scenario that has a hefty infiltration portion that develops in a very singular timeline post-discovery by your opponents. I do not know if I am just a lightweight, but I believe that overnights, for those who do not care to sleep much during Gen Con, should be filled with demolition derby versions of King of the Storval Stairs. Plot and deception do not translate well at 4 AM and I am of the opinion that those who are still cranked at that point in time just want to pit their characters against a good old dungeon crawl, or a non-zero amount of vampiric seugathi just to see who's the most badass. Don't have any scenarios with that particular brand of opponent? I know a girl who can hook you up. In short, perhaps overnight slots can be amped up by offering more mechanical challenges and less opportunities for the players to exercise their memories, or understanding complex socio-economic organisations. I hope that answered part of your question.
And only someone like Jen could channel that many game systems into one cohesive story. I almost want to see what she would do with with those and PF2. Almost.
I feel like that's a little overdramatic. But you are welcome to hold your opinions on PF2.
This sounds like a PFS version of Yelp. The amount of shenanigans around Yelp/nameyourfavoritereviewapp reviews, people holding proprietors hostage over reviews, etc, does not endear me to the idea of porting this over to our community, as well intentioned as the idea is.
I seldom ask for help out here, but we do need help. Our campaign of Emerald Spire top to bottom using dedicated PFS characters has unfortunately lost its GM. We would appreciate a replacement GM to pick us up and deal with us as we go down into the depths.
I would like to echo the feelings of other in this thread: any tracking option that uses less than a full page is asking for any mildly disorganized player to lose half their chronicle sheets in the space of five minutes, turn to the organizer and ask for an exception to be made, because he/she "really doesn't know what happened to them" and, "can you help me figure out how much prestige I have so that I can get a raise dead".
So 15, 15, 13, 11, 13, 13? I could certainly do worse. I'll start building him up! Do you need backgrounds messaged to you, or posted here, or put in a spoiler in the character's tab? Just as a warning, I like to explore my characters and so I start small with them and let experiences shape what I am. The germ is usually enough to give them flesh beyond being lump #23 though.
So, what are the character creation rules? So far, I've assumed 20-pt buy, standard wealth for a character of 5th level and PFS options are legal. Now, I've been eyeing playing a tiefling variant, on the basis that it would permit a better narrative (specifically when considering the lifespan) than: "This rando 5th level character is stumbling down the road with magical gear! How did he get it? WHO KNOWS! Trolololololol." I desperately want to make a slayer but I keep hating the options it affords me and keep shifting towards ranger instead. Unless of course there is some way in hell I can flank without having someone else to help out. So I guess my questions are:
Hello everyone! So I've taken a look at both characters. I'm reluctant to do anything with Granta's character due to the unfortunate circumstances under which he has had to leave PbP. I am looking at the Stonelord left behind by Faelar. I'm going to have to mull that one over. I will be keeping you updated with what my final verdict is.
One boon I would like to see make an appearance is a complete rebuild boon. I have at least one (possibly two) characters that I started before realizing that they are not only mechanically bad, but are also offensive in some manner. And retraining will only get me a new class; I will be stuck with the statistics I have. With dwindling play opportunities, being allowed to go "You know what? That was a terrible idea. Let me not waste those chronicle sheets" would be super awesome.
I know there have been some very passionate arguments from people I know on both sides of this. I don't know that I have much to add to this, beyond a desire to alienate as few people as possible while giving everyone a reasonable chance to continue playing PFS1 under difficult scheduling conditions. I've always been of the mindset that unlimited, or even some limited replay can be harmful. 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. On the other hand, as a particularly hands-on schedule maker for my little corner of the northeast, the difficulties of making scenarios happen and to serve as many people as possible weight heavily on me. Last Thursday's Red Harvest offering is a prime example of the difficulties of making this geek Sudoku work under current replay rules. While my data indicated there were enough people who could play and make a 6-person table happen, in the end I had to choose to replay to make the table happen with a pregen seated. I was happy to choose to seat myself at the table, and willing enough to make it happen to expend a use of Expanded Narrative. However, I hemmed and hawed until almost the last minute before I joined, as I had played it a little over a year ago, had some memory of the events within and didn't think that the scenario was, in of itself, worth a replay. Now, I did feel like I had a duty to make the table happen as a VA. But what if you don't? Are we always going to depend on the goodwill of strangers? Perhaps that is fine. Perhaps not. Perhaps there could be a more codified "kudos for being a awesome person" offered by OPF. I don't know. But I do feel like we need to find at least something we are begrudgingly willing to accept as the last compromise for this campaign.
Hey, I still want to run the damn thing! :)
I'm going to admit, I have recetly been toying with the idea of trying to play a non-binary or trans character. However this discussion makes me feel super nervous about it, as I typically do not do a whole lot of research or have fully fleshed out characters by the time I am done creating the character at level 1. Usually, things organically grow into the initial concept, and personality/behaviors evolve to give the character a more nuanced, multi-layered and multi-dimensional background that we try and strive for in an RPG. But I feel that if I just go with how I've done it for most of my characters, I might act in a way that is disparaging, insulting... In short, end up acting like a jerk. Should I try and delve further than the piece Rigby linked? Should I work to having a blurb similar to that of our shaman pregen Shardra? How much work should I be putting in to at the very least, not be offensive? Is this something best left alone, because it can be insulting by the tone deafness I could bring to the fore?
I can live with anything proposed. I certainly like the direction the OP team is going in currently with a good dose of option 2 mixed with perhaps some option 3. My personal quibble with starting over is the specials. Special qualifiers are difficult not just in running (which is fine) but also in scheduling (which is the crux of my issue). Whether in PFS1 or in PFS2, a special has the same challenges IMO. Rules mastery is a component, but the ability to understand a special's tempo, its individual challenges to help those playing at the table make choices with an understanding of how those choices translate, and preparation are what is being tested in a Special. I'm all for sigils, runes or wafer cookies representing some rules mastery but I think that would be missing some of the key abilities that make a GM a GM whose tables you seek out. And I also feel that those abilities are tested in a special no matter the rules system. So while perhaps a total discount on specials might be a non-starter, perhaps alleviating some of the special requirements that will doubtlessly crop up in the evaluation system put in place for PFS2.
I am most concerned with what the OP team has in mind for the boons obtained via the RSP program. I am also curious about the fate of race boons from PFS1. While I don't have any ideas (and honestly am capable of dealing with whatever resolution the OP team has), I do feel duty-bound to stress that there is a big difference between normal PFS1 boons and race boons.
I like options 2 and 3, am OK with option 5 although it does not excite me at all. While some might be OK with still being able to play anything given that they had to take time off of work, or had to drive forty minutes, or what have you, I am honestly so unenthused by the replayables I have already played that I am sighing just at the idea of sitting down for Wounded Wisp. And I love Wounded Wisp. I think a combination of options 2 and 3 would probably be ideal, as they deal with two different types of players, as well as gives an out for people who do not have the capability to GM; they exist, and it's not solely because some people are terrible at it: some people just do not have the volume or the ability to respond well under a lot of pressure or stimuli. And I'm not really interested in running sceanrios ad nauseum into the ground under option 4.
So you would just remove the option for people to understand that they are doing things that don't fit in with the campaign? Because other than expending resources that you could have used to better your character, that's what atonements are: opportunities for a player to understand what kind of campaign is being run and how they can fit in it. And it still doesn't give anyone a visible line not to cross. Reminders are important, and you don't address that, at least in a manner I find satisfactory. Yes, people will behave like jerks no matter what the piece of paper says or what I might say, and people will still get banned for behavior that isn't acceptable in our society, but that doesn't mean I need to provide them with a vehicle for their shenanigans. I mean, I can still run over people drunk, but if I only have a bicycle, it becomes more difficult for me to do harm. And that's what I believe we are trying to accomplish, make it difficult for someone to engage in the behavior, or make the endeavor so blatant that we can nip it in the bud. I can understand that you might be frustrated with the lack of character options this can lead to, but if PF2 ends up with the same spread of options as PF1, I think you have plenty of other options to make up for your loss. With that said, I'm happy to read that you are capable of roleplaying characters who toe that line. But just because you can do it does not mean everyone else can, and you are looking to enable those options not just for you, but for people who may cause a lot of harm because they aren't capable of operating with that much freedom.
In my humble opinion, it would be because at that point we neuter the alignment's meaning. We complain enough about how Lawful Good Paladins aren't behaving in a very goodly fashion. Furthermore, if we keep the complete restriction on evil acts that we have, how do we tell someone that they are retired? How do we tell them they need an atonement? Right now the limit is "if you shift to an evil alignment, you atone or you are done". How does that even begin to work with evil alignments allowed? That isn't to even mention that all my earlier objections still hold true, with people still being given a license to behave like jerks. And finally, if we keep the same restrictions, how is that "roleplaying freedom" that was pushed as the main reason behind allowing LE going to even work? You want to roleplay evil but you aren't allowed to roleplay evil because of the restrictions. At that point, one would just be a gelded, edgier version of LN.
Very true. But who makes the decision of where we draw the line? Is hurting an NPC who is evil and an obstacle to the PC's progress, without being an enemy combatant, grossly evil? Does Mr or Mrs Commoner 5 who doesn't want to tell you where the McGuffin is deserve to be beaten up? I would argue it is? You might think otherwise. Do you really want to spend half an hour debating me, a random guy at a table you are at for the sake of "expanded roleplaying opportunities", or could we think that Evil alignments are just not worth it?
Another player also had to be told that his actions merited an alignment warning, and those took twenty minutes of back and forth, of a debate about morality, [..]You have to make your expectations known at the beginning of the campaign. Tell your players there's no discussion about it. I use the 'three strikes you're out' system. Two warning about alignment change, then on the third strike, alignment change. This is a game: sometimes we have to treat it as such. I'm thinking about issuing yellow cards and red cards that would be stapled to the players' character sheet... :) The expectations are well known! This is Pathfinder Society Organized Play, and we all know what the status quo is; the expectations have been lain out in every single guide to organized play in very plain language! If the expectations we hold under PFSOP are still unclear in a system that allows only for a minimum of moral ambiguity from the players, what happens when someone says "Evil is cool"? Do we end up with situations where a character is left behind? "I didn't harm him/her, he/she just missed the boat, I'm not their minder" right mister lawful evil? Except there is at least one scenario where you get penalized for missing your extraction time. Enjoy paying gold and PP! Guess it sucks to be a goody two shoes working with Evil Mc Lawfulstein, Esquire where your philosophies clashed on the field. This is just one example, and I don't care to think of all the devious ways in which someone could mess with another character in the 200+ scenarios we hqve available. And of course, we're just "playing our character, that's how he acts, I didn't do anything evil". The debates, the irritation and the drama aren't worth it IMO.
|
Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 206 posts (7,902 including aliases). 11 reviews. 1 list. 1 wishlist. 45 Organized Play characters. 15 aliases. 