emusocprof's page

Please cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Battles line. Thanks

What is Paizo's mission statement?

How about?:

One SRD to rule them all,
One SRD to find them,
One SRD to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.

How about "Jarla?". :-)

+1

This attitude has pushed me out of PFS. Happily, I have found a gaming group that is playing to have fun with a GM who is working to tell a fun and interesting story.

I'm really becoming disturbed. I mean on an actual real level. I see posts that are literally asking how to mess with their players for seemingly random stuff. Asking how to spite them, punish them, or make them regret playing their characters. I see people lining up with piles and piles of really bad advice, telling them to do stuff like making extra rules to punish them twice, or telling them they can't do something arbitrarily ("you've been hit with Feeblemind,...

Seriously, why isn't there a subscription for Pathfinder Society scenarios?

I know I would buy it.

And, while you're at it, you should make a "package" that includes all the scenarios from Season 0, and one from Season 1.

I'm just sayin'. :)

+1

Of course, having a subscription or not does not stop a player from reading the scenario (or the DM from not reading it :-/ ). And print runs are not the only function of subscriptions. The rest of the world clamors to sign people up for monthly services because they are dependable sources of revenue.

However, the subscription would help regularly vacuum more money out of our pockets. There are many scenarios I may have ended up paying for if they were automatically delivered to me. I just canceled a Maps subscription because I realized I paid for several that I really was not interested in -> more money to Paizo. If I didn't have a spouse who was watching this stuff a little closer, I could still be getting maps that I would never really consider buying, but yet accept with a shrug and think to myself that "I may use them someday."

Additionally, making it easier for people to buy things is a fundamental principle in sales. Why not extend the subscription model to scenarios if there is an interest? It should be low to no cost to implement (though I am no programmer and may stand corrected - however the subscription infrastructure and auto PDF delivery tech are already in place) with potential modest financial benefits and high intangible benefits like convenience and the appearance of responsive and flexible product delivery.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. To some folks who spend a large amount of time hanging out on this site, it may seem trivial to purchase a scenario the morning it is released. But for the vast non-posting majority of Paizo (and PFS) customers it may actually push product and save us some time and bother.

wow there is a huge hole in the midwest -- Kyle must have been here -- looks like a black hole.

...and it smells of death...yep, Kyle was there. :-)

Count me in to judge for each slot!

Roger

Are there any PFS volunteers without a scheduled slot on Friday night? I am slated to run a table of the Year of the Shadow Lodge special, but then PathfinderWiki was nominated for an ENnie. I'm going to be the only admin from the site present at GenCon this year, so it'd be great to be able to attend to represent. If there's someone who could do me a solid and pick up my spot, I'd be eternally grateful.

I could do it. It turns out I bought a ticket for this event before I found out I would be running it at PaizoCon. I'll return the ticket and just judge it again. What needs to happen to make sure I get the revised scenario in my downloads so I can prep it.

Roger

I would strongly suggest selling t-shirts and/or sweathshirts for the year's Con. I would have purchased two of each, even at a premium for the relatively small size of the Con. I did purchase the glass, but its just not the same.

One of the things that has struck me in my recent con experiences with PFS (PaizoCon & Origins) is the frantic scurrying many GMs are doing to provide players with interesting table experiences by providing high quality battlemaps. We all saw the projector rig at PaizoCon. Kyle (Baird) and several other GMs (Shane?) spent major dollars to upsize, print and laminate maps from scenarios. I know Doug (Doug Doug - the original five star GM) and Kyle have spent a lot of time with 1" grid paper and handfuls of markers in order to grab players' attention and let them know that their enjoyment of the game is important. My own wife has recently brought up the uncomfortable topic of cutting back on Sharpie purchases for the sake of the kids' college funds. This occurred after I showed an unhealthy enthusiasm for the new, limited edition, sand colored marker they released in their "Carribean Colors" line this summer (WHOO HOO - several purchased in both regular AND fine point).

With this said, it seems to me that there is an unmet market need for printable mini scale (1"=5') maps for use with PFS scenarios. I would propose that Paizo should make PDFs of these maps available for purchase as an optional supplement to the scenarios. Each page could include a 6x8 section of the map which could be trimmed and joined to the other sections to make the complete map.

While I am no business genius or copyright attorney, and I am sure there are issues I could not possibly know about, here are my supporting arguements:

1) Paizo (presumably) already owns the rights to the maps. If this is not completely true, portions of the additional sales could be directed to the designer/cartographer. What is left should be mostly profit (less some initial formatting and website sales costs).

2) Based on my experience (described above), there is a market for this product.

3) Having easy to print maps might encourage more people to play/GM. I takes money and/or time to create decent maps. Personally, I found it easier to reenter gaming when I found the Ptolus campaign and it's accompanying Skeleton Key map packs.

4) Color laser printers are going for $249 these days. Two years ago, printing out some huge map on an inkjet was not practical (I know - I tried it). Now, it is relatively cheap.

5) Players love good maps. They talk about it at game days and the cons. They ooh and aah at tables with good maps, they complain about tables with really bad maps. Players who have a good time are more likely buy rulebooks and supplements. GMs like players who are having fun. GMs who are having fun are likely to buy more stuff too.

6) If map folios work for the adventure paths, then couldn't a similar product also work for PFS?

7) The integration of flipmaps and map packs with the scenarios is brilliant. Keep doing that. Just release supplemental map PDFs with scenarios which do not utilize these other products.

8) Some GMs (many who might particularly vocal) might complain "that back in my day we didn't even have dry erase markers. We used M&Ms and graph paper. In the dark. And we were GRATEFUL for them!". However, I believe that many other will download PDFs, print them, and bring them to their FLGS on PFS game day.

I would not be surprised if there are lots of reasons why Paizo hasn't done this already. Just thought I would throw it out to see what you all thought.

Just got back from a five days of PFS madness at Origins 2010 (with only a one day break after PaizoCon!). I had a great time!

I, and many others, owe my great Origins weekend primarily to the tireless efforts of everybody's favorite 5 star GM: Doug Doug. He single-handedly organized the PFS presence at the Con and he did an amazing job. The events went off without a hitch, players were very happy, and many new players were turned on to participating in more PFS games. It was clear that Doug spent a great deal of time, energy, and money in making this event a great success. Cold drinks for the GMs, an electric pencil sharpener at the ready, color laser printer, ALL the PFS scenarios printed out with extra chronicles, extra pens and pencils in cups at the organizer's table, and, of course, his famous maps. All this while he GM'd in every slot (and extras I think). Doug went WAY beyond the call of duty and I would like to send a big THANK YOU out to him. I invite others who had a good time at Origins to do the same. Thanks for everything Doug!

I have been using HeroLab and it is PFS compatible. The just added support for the new APG playtest classes.

Hey Doug,

I would like to volunteer for all three slots on Thursday and one on Sunday.

I was thinking about volunteering for #s 51 & 52, but I noticed that they are not being released until 6/30. Do you have an in? How will this affect prepping the mods (maps)?

Roger

Purchased. Very happy with it. Works as advertised and is quite handy.

Hopefully some success with this will encourage the author to create an iPad format version as well. The extra screen real estate would be great. I would be willing to even pay a little premium for the "HD" version.

Well done! Thanks for your work.

Marc Radle 81 wrote:

Wait ... is THIS the iPhone app Paizo has been working on or is this something you came up with on your own?

Yup, 'tis so. I needed this app (the PRD easily browsable on my iPhone) myself. So I created it, and thought others might need it as well so I put it on the app store. I'm not affiliated with Paizo, and don't know what they're up to app-wise. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy it :-)

Same problem here, today. Over all the whole reporting system is clunky and error prone. A more reliable and intuitive system might significantly increase GM reporting.

There needs to be a purpose for the reporting. In season 0 when factions were supposed to be competing, it felt like an integrating kind of effort. Now its is unclear why this task should be performed. It currently seems like pointless busy work. This combined with a less than friendly and unintuitive interface (IMHO) tends to suppress participation.

Perhaps a kind of reward system? Even if only symbolic: "You have gained the rank of 'Grand Poobah GM'" when you log your 20th table. Maybe an extra special profile graphic?. Some real-world swag might be nice, too, but I suspect that is hoping for a little too much. :-)

Yeah, I think it sounds like an interesting solution for OP.

I would absolutely HATE it in a normal campaign, but I can see the appeal.

Do they get little certificates with their chosen bundle, or is it simply written in a 1-20 list on the character sheet or something?

I have not played LFR but I have participated in quite a few PFS scenarios and I have to say that the Season 1 scenario Chronicles are a little disappointing - often at the lower tiers there are no items listed as all of these items could be purchased normally. Its like getting to Christmas morning and someone says, "Here's twenty bucks. Buy yourself something." :-) Personally, I like finding the trinkets.

I agree that the bundle idea from LFR sounds interesting. It simulates splitting up the loot while short circuiting the problem of bullying. And you can look back at your decisions and see how each of these branching points has helped you build your character.

Also, I would like to put my 2 cents in about pushy players. While I mostly like gamers, I have found a vocal minority to be pushy, rude and demanding. I am not invested enough in the game to start a RL conflict with someone over imaginary loot. Thus, I would be the person who would get the short end of the stick in a "cert" system. Also, I have gotten several friends, my kids and my wife to start playing PFS. The non-conflict item distribution is very popular with them as they avoid the intimidation problems that goes along with being a noob.

I have been looking into 3 programs to use for Pathfinder.HeroLab, RPGXplorer, & PCGen. I was curious as to what the community is using and what they think of these programs?

I purchased HeroLab and use it for Pathfinder Society, Pathfinder RPG and D20 groups. There is a little learning curve as the program's function is unlike most others you will have used (e.g. there are no analogies to MS Word or Excel), but with a few minutes of using it I felt really comfortable with it. I have been particularly fond of its support for Pathfinder Society Rules. As others have said, its relatively easy customization options make it very usable.

I purchased RPGXplorer a while back, but I found its slow updates (if any) very frustrating. While it is generally decent, it has its share of bugs. I gave up on it and threw down the money for HeroLab after seeing it at GenCon. I didn't spend the extra lightly. From watching RPGX and the forums, it seemed as if this was essentially dead software. This is doubly true for for their long promised GM Xplorer.

I started out with PCGen and I have recommended it to several friends who do not have the means to purchase HeroLab. It is a bit more complicated than HeroLab, but in IMO it offers better customizability. My problem with PCGen was its slow performance, particularly with more than one character loaded at a time. I understand this is a result of its roots in Java. However, I did appreciate its cross platform support which is not offered by the other two. Ultimately, the performance issues drove my to pay for HeroLab.