Wow, ok he is not saying you have less of a voice due to lack of stars, he is saying your account is not memorable because it is mostly blank... You have no avatar to remember you by (which many use to remember posters), you have no subscriptions or stars/novas. Due to that he has no memories of ever responded to you. it is hard to distinguish from others.
With all due respect, that is not at all how this response read to me, however, I will admit it has been colored by our previous interactions. I still definitely feel as though the intention of pointing out my lack of “distinguish” was to belittle me and my opinions. If that is in fact sincerely not the case, then I apologize.
We were just wondering this past weekend if it was time again for someone to encourage players to ignore the rules and cheat. Seemed like we were overdue for it.
I feel like if there's enough players interested in ignoring the rules in a given PFS group, sounds like its time for a home game. If people NEED it to give society credit, they could always run the AP in campaign mode and hand out chronicles when those drop (presuming those rules will exist when/if APs get sanctioned).
I believe they have made mention of retroactive chronicles in this case, so that would be an option in this case. Someone with more insider knowledge than I should confirm though.
I’m starting to feel there is some personal animosity here.
Wasn't aware I've ever responded to you, before.
You don't have an avatar, any titles, or any Stars or Novas that distinguish yourself (to me).
Nothing about the post you quoted was intended as an attack on you as a person. Just what you typed.
medtec28 wrote:
Every time I post, you seem to look for some opportunity to tell me I’m wrong
I'm a fan of symbolic logic. Try looking at it from this point of view:
Every time
(someone)
Posts something
(I feel needs addressing)
I respond to it
I’m sorry, what is the minimum number of glyphs, novas and stars required to express an opinion again, I can’t find it listed anywhere?
I recognize you, but not because of those credentials, but rather your tactic of shouting down discordant opinions. We have had several interactions, and not once will you discourse, instead you tell me repeatedly that I am wrong, without ever lowering yourself to explain why. So you can shout me down, congrats.
So you have more time in the seat than I do, won’t even argue that. You’re a more loyal fan than I am, won’t even argue that. So ask, why does this insignificant 0 star, 0 nova, 0 glyph person challenge the all knowing better PFS fans?
I have a different opinion, and think things can be better. Maybe you think things are perfect, and that’s fine, but I don’t, and therefore, until someone with real cache tells me to stop, I will keep pushing to make things better.
Respond if you like, or don’t, don’t care.
All I have left to say about this thread is leadership is trying
Transparency is best
Fans should be understanding
we all want the work done, and I’m sure campaign leadership wants it done almost as much as we do
This little dig is absolutely unwarranted.
We're the ones who *want* it done. For us, it's a luxury.
Paizo employees *need* it done. For them, it's a paycheck.
As others have pointed out, they don’t NEED to sanction anything at all. But that wasn’t the point of my post, and I do believe that was understood.
Nefertiti, I’m starting to feel there is some personal animosity here. Every time I post, you seem to look for some opportunity to tell me I’m wrong and my opinion is invalid and unwanted. If this is the case, I will be happy to hash this out somewhere other than these boards. This does not seem to be the proper venue.
My intent was to simply ask for transparency. In losing John, they lost not only their most experienced team member, but their most community facing one as well, neither Tonya nor Linda engage with us as much as he did. That isn’t their style, and that is okay. On her last blog Tonya gave us some transparency, and I think it was hands down her best move since taking over. I am simply asking for more of that. Maybe roll it into one of the weekly blogs.
I think most of us know they are overwhelmed, and want to be understanding, but the radio silence and overprotective fan faction make it hard for us to be as understanding as we want to be.
How often do you check the job postings* at Paizo?
Do you have any idea at all how long some of those have been open?
I'm not sure why you're assuming ill-intent on the part of Paizo staff.
*Hint:
There's a link at the bottom of every single page on this website
I actually don’t see a posting about that, not that I remotely qualify. I know we all want the work done, and I’m sure campaign leadership wants it done almost as much as we do. What would help, is a little more transparency about the effort. Once a month, just tell us where they are in the backlog. Tonya did this once, but other than that it’s been near-complete radio silence. I’d be happy with a once-a-month “Hey fans, we’re still struggling, but this is where we are, bear with us.” The sound of crickets and “Better” fans calling for us to be patient doesn’t help.
alright, consider me sufficiently shouted down. keep doing things exactly the same, don’t entertain the thought of changing anything, enjoy your echo chamber, I’m out. No further comments to be made
I agree that what works in position A will not necessarily work in position B, but there is also no guarantee it will not. Perhaps you are in the camp where you do not mind the several month wait for options, and therefore feel no pressure to change the status quo. If you are, then I understand and respect your opinion, however I also disagree with it. The awesome thing is, that makes neither of us wrong. Maybe my idea won’t work in PFS. I however can offer one guarantee, if what you do is all you ever do, what you get is all you ever get. We have a new campaign now, and have a chance to make improvements, why such resistance to that?
I just would like to add to more points to my above ideas
1) Everything I have said is based on things I have seen work elsewhere, so telling me that they are impossible, as GM Lamplighter, states is patently false.
2) To paraphrase a popular Broadway show “ You don’t have a plan, you just hate mine.” Counseling patience implies that you think the status quo is good, I and many others feel it is not. If you don’t like my ideas, why not share your own thoughts on how to improve things instead of suggesting that my ideas will not work.
Bob, with all due respect, none of this was a surprise to anyone. The new product line, the staffing change, none of it. They knew all of this was coming. I understand being stressed by work, believe me I do. I think we all appreciate that they have a lot on their plates. But here is my question. Do they want us to buy anything before they get caught up?
I think we all can agree that the prior pace of AR updates was far less than desirable, and we are simply asking for improvement, or at least reasonable assurances of same. Nobody has heard a word from campaign leadership since GenCon 1 month ago. 3 guest blogs, lots of unanswered questions on the forums. But nothing from Linda or Tonya in response.
I understand you feel like you are being the voice of reason, and speak with some authority as a high level volunteer in the program. I think you opinion is both highly valued and valid, but it does not devalue the conflicting sentiments in this thread.
All we want is for things to be better. Maybe you are happy with the status quo, but many of us are not. For you to imply that that is somehow disrespectful to campaign leadership, or that we are ungrateful to have th “Pleanty of content in the CRB...” is, in my opinion undeserved. Paizo has produced another book, and people want to use options in it. If Paizo intended for us to be satisfied with the CRB for months, why produce anything else?
^ that was me being serious, but on another serious note, that very process evolved from a less efficient system of having only Paizo employees review content for Additional Resources.
It. Took. Much. Much. Longer.. To... Finish....
Not only that, but in their haste to complete everything by a deadline, things would get missed. Which lead to redactions, errata, bans, and the ensuing arguments about how to reimburse people.
Having more people available for discussion and cross reference really is a better system. I can personally attest to the pain of shelving characters who no longer worked as designed because one little cog of an item or feat no longer functioned as designed.
And organized play continues to evolve. Do you have any ideas on how to improve things as they are now?
I was going to be done with this thread. It was making me more annoyed, and I felt like I was sounding more angry, than I was providing actionable feedback. I already have a not-undeserved reputation as a malcontent here. I do hope people understand that comes from a desire to see things improve, but you asked and I shall answer.
How would I handle it? I would place a select group of volunteers under NDA with the intention of using them as my additional resources vetting committee. I would provide them with advanced access via watermarked pdf before street date of the product, to allow them sufficient time to review said product. I would adopt the general policy of “ All common options will be considered legal for PFS use within 30 days of street date for each product, or relevant update to the additional resources document, whichever occurs first.” There is actually precedent for this, I believe that the adventurers guid was announced as PFS legal prior to its release. The intention would to have the relevant update done prior to that 40day benchmark. This would allow the non-subscribers in the crowd to determine if we want to purchase each book prior to the newest shiny dropping. If the committee determines an item is not recommended, and it is uncommon or rare, then nothing need be done immediately, but on common items, a significant effort would need to be made to place it on a restricted list prior to the 30 day benchmark. Uncommon and rare options could be updated in a slower, more methodical pace.
EDIT:: A pre-requisite for this volunteer position could even be that one is already a subscriber to that line, as that way Paizo could be sure that the individuals were not getting something for free, but rather only advanced accesss.
If it were my campaign, and I am 100% aware that it is not, I would attempt to be as inclusive as possible with allowing options. I would only hold back things that were significantly beyond the power curve, or thematically inappropriate. I would not hold things back for their appearance on a chronicle sheet that will never be released, because it is a cool and interesting option that would be great to put there.
As far as your previous post about my volunteering to speed things up, I GM’d regularly at my local shop before the playtest killed our PFS group, and I’m working with my VL to revive it. Otherwise, I lack the significant blind brand loyalty Paizo seems to like in its fans. I am not a subscriber. I only purchase products that I intend to use, and currently PFS is my only venue for playing Pathfinder. As such, I purchase one or more books every 6 months or so when I find an already vetted option that I would like t9 use. I play in an other OP campaign where I regularly purchase books sooner because I am fairly certain I will be able to use the options in the book,
There you are, asked and answered. Your thoughts in return?
You can read a bit more about the review process in last December's blog post. Only about a paragraph though.
What I can add is that I and others on the team had conventions last weekend that diverted some focus. But be assured that the book is being worked on.
I see nothing there that explains the process, sorry, did you place the correct link?
During PFS1, the team involved with reviewing content for the Additional Resources was us – the community.
Venture Officers volunteered time to comb through sections for review, and regular ol' players voiced concerns or jubilation here in the forums, bringing up discussions for Leadership to consider.
Since most of us aren't Paizo employees, that process is going to have to wait until after the products are released.
Seems like a flawed process to me, but hey, I’m not in charge. Kind of makes my point about priorities though. If this is the process, here’s to 6 month waits for updates, nothing more to be said or done about it.
In PF1 there was often a gap of about 6 months between a product being released and sanctioned. Hopefully they'll do better in PF2 with a slightly less bruising schedule but they do seem to be extremely busy right now so I'm not holding my breath.
Nor am I buying anything that isn't legal.
It may go a bit faster since one of the hurdles towards timely AR has been reduced - updating the website.
Just to give an idea about why it can take some time -
* Book gets made, contributions from all writers integrated
* Book is given to Additional Resources taskforce for review
* AR reports to campaign leadership what they think should be allowed/banned/clarified.
* Campaign leadership makes up their mind and submits a final list to IT
* IT puts it up on the website
All these steps take place sometime between when you see a product announced and when you can finally use it. If all goes well, the AR taskforce has the book well in advance of it actually being available to the public. But even if all of that goes fast, it still needs to go past campaign leadership (bottleneck) and IT (bottleneck). Hopefully with the external website that last bottleneck has gotten a bit wider. But it's not a cure-all.
For anyone who's truly fed up, you can always vote with your wallet: don't buy any book until it's AR is done.
I the AR review committee(for lack of a better description) doesn’t have access long before street date, then Paizo doesn’t care about PFS. I’m sure the products are all available for internal review at least 6 months before street date. If this was in any way a priority, review could start then.
If campaign leadership were truly embracing of their role as a marketing tool, they would want to release the AR updates as close to street date as possible, if the delay is 6 months, then other things are higher priority to them.
If we want “voting with your wallet” to create culture change here, and I certainly do, we need to be loudly vocal about why we are doing so.
They have a brand new campaign going, and it is their choice whether to pour a bucket of waters on the embers, or douse the whole thing in gasoline.
When can we expect to have "Pathfinder Lost Omens World Guide" appear on the "Character Options" page - http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pathfinder-2-0-characte r-options/ ?
It's still undergoing review. Expect it to take at the very least a couple more weeks. Things are unfortunately a bit hectic.
I don’t know. Remember, PFS never commented on the Jingasa, this was a change from the RPG developers. I wonder if the reaction would have been different if they said “This is an unbalancing agent in the game, so we are disallowing it. Freely rebuild your character without that option.” Instead of “Yeah, we’re going to make this incredibly useful item nearly useless.” Particularly if it were only one of a handful of things disallowed. Just looking at the additional resources tells you the strategy. Nothing is allowed unless it’s listed there. I am simply suggesting it should be everything is allowed unless they list it there. The latter implies to the player base that they will likely get to use their new shiny, where the current strategy does a lot to dampen enthusiasm.
No, this is something I totally understand. I’m only questioning whether the default should be “We allow everything but...”, or if it should be “We disallow everything but...”. I was simply stating that I play 8n another organized play campaign with the latter attitude, and buy books regularly and early, where as I only occasionally buy Pathfinder book because they disallow most options and don’t tell me what they are allow8ng for several months.
Agree to disagree here. How effective my character is mechanically has no impact on my ability to role play that character. I’ve seen mechanical monstrosities that are a joy to have during an RP scene and completely inept characters that don’t mystically become engaging characters just because they are mechanically crippled. Why do people consistently believe that these two are linked?
As I said above, I participate in another organized play, and their policy is “Books are legal one month after street date, unless we exclude a particular option.” And I see much less complaining about “Rules Bloat” than I do here with all the restrictions.
How fast are they at updating it normally based on PF1 societies past?
I plan to only play Society as that is what the groups in my area plays. If I can't use the books I don't see the reason to buy them right away and by then they will be on AoN. If that happens than I probably will only buy a book when I plan on using an option from that book and its already been updated to be usable.
This has been my process for years. PFS can be quite draconian with what they do and do not allow into the campaign, and it has been my only pathfinder play for several years at this point. The PFRD usually has the rules up, so I can read about them without committing cash, then I wait on the additional resources, as some others put it, somewhere around 2-6 months from publication. Hopefully closer to the 2 now that they don’t have to “Wait for Website formatting”. A lot of the distress on the parts of players could be reduced by moving to a more inclusive than exclusive mentality. Allowing the player to assume the entire publication is allowed, and only update the few things that are to be excluded. Based on the current CRB listing on the site, only 1feat is restricted from PFS, this MAY be possible in the current setting. I’ve seen it work with another organized play setting that I participate in, but I have little hope that PFS is trusting enough to go this route.
I don’t need it in the guide, but I’d love it if the PTB’s would answer this, or any of the other number of questions, I understand that GenCon is big and stressful, but it’s almost like they launched a new campaign and peopl e have questions. When does the radio silence stop?
I want to say an honest thank you to the organized play team for The most enjoyable multi-table specials I have participated in. In the past I have been openly and voiciferously critical of the way the specials have been managed, but this time I truly felt like the emphasis was on the players and you gave me, and probably all of us, an amazing experience.
If this ends up being my fairwell to PFS, at least I can say it was fittingly awesome!
I think the palceholder name of The Grinder (and John's hyperbolic descriptions of mass death and character sheets torn up) have really put the messaging off on this special. A lot of people seem to be taking it as if the OP team is gleefully looking forward to destroying all our beloved characters instead of as an epic, possibly bittersweet, blaze of glory that is necessary to help the Society survive.
Maybe it's because I've heard John talk enough to know when he's making silly exaggerations and tangents to amuse himself.
I’m choosing to believe that the hyperbole is warn8ng people like me away. I have heard a John say that he has to be careful about setting expectations after the “Year of the Adamantine Greatsword” mistake.
Hard pass. I didn’t play Bonekeep and I will not play this. The worst part is that GenCon 2018 was my last PFS interactive special, and I didn’t know it. “There was a time in our lives when we went outside to play with our friends for the last time, and we didn’t even realize it.”
Alright everyone, I'm done. I'm out. PF2 may go on to become an excellent game, but from what I have seen, I don't have much faith, so I'm done with this playtest and I have been encouraged, by my gaming group, to detail why on the forums. In the unlikely event anyone is interested, my reasons are detailed below
1) The curse of sameness:
The character creation system is needlessly rigid. The ABC character creation restricts the variations of characters that can be created. The first character I tried to build was a druid who was focused on Melee with wild shape and a Strength score of 18. Were any of you aware that this is impossible? The only ability score that can be an 18 for a druid at level 1 is Wisdom. Additionally, if I wanted to play a Constitution 18 “I block it with my chest” Barbarian, this is also impossible. Neither of these concepts seems so overpowered or abusive as to be made fundamentally impossible. This, along with the incredible paucity of options makes for, in my own opinion, an uninspired character creation system. PF classic has gotten to the point where I can easily transition from idea to character. PF2 was already telling me don’t play a shift or a slayer, play another fighter with a longsword. I’ve been playing for years, I’m done with playing fighters with longswords, and now you are restricting how different I can make my fighter with a longsword.
2) The Surveys are un-necessarily daunting:
The recent surveys take way too long to complete, and you cannot save and come back. This makes it difficult for someone like me to actually provide adequate feedback by survey. I had originally likened the PF2 playtest as a PCA pump reaction to the Shifter fiasco. I figured, based on the rigid way they wanted to received feedback, and the unrealistic schedule, that the idea was to convince us all that they were making changes, while they rushed everything to the printers. The willingness to make changes may have improved my opinion on this, but the surveys seem like they are trying to discourage people from providing feedback. If Paizo is truly trying to playtest this system, and they are as committed to getting data by survey, they need to make these surveys quicker and easier, and if that is not possible, they need to let you pause in the middle and come back to complete it
3) Playtesting isn't fun:
Above, I touched on the idea that the playtest period is super accelerated. I’m about to be starting Doomsday Dawn part 3. I’ve done a little PFS in between, but I’ll tell you, this is not a fun adventure to play. I get to play once or twice a month, and if I’m going to pick what I want to spend that brief respite from real life on, they could have at least given me an engaging fun experience. I get that the intention is to stress test the rules, but I have to believe that they could have done a better job of making it fun.
4) MY GAME IS NOT BROKEN:
The more I see of PF2, the more I feel like I’m not the target audience. I like PF classic. PF2 has changed things that I never saw as a problem in a way to make things needlessly simplistic and rigid. I want my game to give me complexity and flexibility. I took the time to learn the system because I wanted to be able to create whichever character
I can picture in my minds eye. PF2 makes that impossible. PF classic has finally reached the point where everything is possible, but now they need to reboot it. I understand that the company cannot survive if they cannot sell me the next book. While I understand this, I do not have to support it.
TLDR I’m tapping out on the playtest. I’ll keep playing PF classic as long as I have people to play with. I’ll also secretly harbor the hope that some other company will rob the bank on PF classic the way Paizo did to WOTC
The problem is, we have a balanced party. Android ace pilot operative who built his character to fly starships, who doesn't want to be in any other role, Strength based human Solarian with social skills, but no technical skills and a 10 dex, Ysoki Engineer with no piloting skill, but high computers and engineering, Vesk Soldier/mystic, with no social or technical skills, I think he has 2 ranks in pilot and a 12 dex, and my envoy who has ranks in computers, diplomacy, engineering, and pilot, but only a 12 dex. The best gunner we have is our pilot, but he built the character to be a pilot, so wants to pilot, Solarian says he doesn't have the ability to do anything but captain, The Vesk grabs a gun at the outset, our Ysoki flips between science and engineering as necessary, and I jump on whatever console is most useful.
Since nothing ads to gunnery(it only uses ranks in pilot) and dex mod), and a tier 1 ship has an AC 13(15 is they make the trivial roll to evade) we have a 40-50% chance that the round matters(about 75% if I'm not diverting, balancing, targeting or filling some other role on the ship). And, most of the enemy ships are running with +7 to +9 gunnery checks, so more often than not I'm going to be in one of those other rolls.
It's great to say you need more gunners, but not everyone is a dex based soldier or operative, so the math doesn't work out great for that.
The best thing for starship combat enjoyment is to not let that one scenario define your experience.
When the only positive thing I have ever said about starship combat is either "It ended quickly" or "I didn't hate it." And two of my 4 experiences were negative, I hardly think I'm letting one bad scenario define my experience.
It seems like there is a lot of onus on the GM to make a boring dredge exciting. It seems like they made gunnery too hard in most cases. And if the shot misses, the whole turn was wasted.
asically it all boils dow to " If the gunner misses, nothing else for the round matters." And "If the gunner hits, all the previous actions are irrelevant."
The pilot matters.
1) it puts the ship out of the enemy's good firiong arc
2) it puts the gunner on the side of the ship with the most damaged shields. Punching through those shields asap and causing glitches matters.
1) every single ship I have faced is able to fire in every direction, usually with it's most dangerous weapon being turret mounted. While from a design perspective I understand this is the best tactical option, it does limit the importance of picking which side of the ship you land on.
2) I have yet to see the time when the enemy has failed to divert power to restore shields and then also failed to balance them. So where I hit does not matter much at all.
Everything matters except that the whole turn leads up to the one d20 roll that the gunner makes, and that determines success or failure for the whole ship, so does anything else really matter at all?
So far, in my limitted SFS play, I find myself ambivalent towards Starfinder as a whole, and I have yet to have a fun experience with ship to ship combat. My experiences are as follows.
Into the unknown:
I honestly don't remember hating this one, maybe because the GM soft balled it, maybe because the dice were in our favor, but I don't recall much other than we fought in space
Cries from the drift:
This one went quickly because we were able to put the enemy ship into our rear arc so they couldn't fire, and the gunner hit often enough. Since it wasn't a duel to the death it wasn't terribly long, and it wasn't terrible
Yesteryears's truth:
This was enough to make me consider quitting SFS. We played the initial space combat for nearly 2 hours. The gunners could not seem to hit the mothership with any regularity. Eventually the GM just moved on.
Skittershot:
This was today, and it was a frustrating end to an enjoyable game. The only pregen with a pilot skill is easily outclassed by the enemy vessel. This time I was in the Gunner's chair, and I could not ever seem to roll well enough to hit this thing. I had to roll a 13 or better to hit, unless the pilot made the near automatic evade check, and that made it a 15 or better
Basically it all boils dow to " If the gunner misses, nothing else for the round matters." And "If the gunner hits, all the previous actions are irrelevant."
I know someone is going to mention the tactics of putting your ship in an unmanned firing arc, but every ship we fight is either more maneuverable, or can shoot in every direction. And it seems like ships never seem to be out of range no matter what happens.
The other roles are support or reactive, but cannot meaningfully effect combat if the gunner misses.
I've gotten to the point that when the hex map comes out, I want to pack up and go home.
So, I'm asking all of you, how do I have fun with what seems to be a funless black hole of a minigame?
I'm starting to fear the response to the negativity this class seems to have provoked. I'm afraid that they may react in response to our complaints by doubling down instead of changing their stance. I almost expect the response to be that this is the shifter that we were always intended to have.
.....I can't imagine that at all. That paints them as petty and unconcerned with their customer base, and I know from past experience they are none of those things.
Accidents happen....failure is perfectly acceptable as long as something is learned from it.
To be fair, they have also historically held open play tests, and put out quality product. The past few hardcovers have gone the video game route of "get it out and patch it later." And now, they seem to think that they don't need open play tests.
The Advanced Class Guide had an open playtest, and was the most error filled product to date, with a suite of problems for many classes, which had to get patched after release.
Open Playtests do not necessarily automatically produce quality content.
I agree, that was the beginning of the "Rush it out and patch it later" trend that seems to be the new Paizo.
I'm starting to fear the response to the negativity this class seems to have provoked. I'm afraid that they may react in response to our complaints by doubling down instead of changing their stance. I almost expect the response to be that this is the shifter that we were always intended to have.
.....I can't imagine that at all. That paints them as petty and unconcerned with their customer base, and I know from past experience they are none of those things.
Accidents happen....failure is perfectly acceptable as long as something is learned from it.
To be fair, they have also historically held open play tests, and put out quality product. The past few hardcovers have gone the video game route of "get it out and patch it later." And now, they seem to think that they don't need open play tests.
I'm starting to fear the response to the negativity this class seems to have provoked. I'm afraid that they may react in response to our complaints by doubling down instead of changing their stance. I almost expect the response to be that this is the shifter that we were always intended to have.
Marshaling: this has been steadily improving, I still think that positioning them based on the banners, which cannot be seen as you enter the Sag, is a less than ideal system, but they did seem to have a bit more command of the crowds this year.
Specials: I started another thread on this already. I have yet to make it to the end of a special. I think the timing Ned's to be a bit more rigorous. I would start marshaling at 730, GM's must be at their table no later than 755. At 8 Tonya grabs the mic for no more than 6-10 minutes of announcements, and then there are no other non-scenario related announcements until the scenario ends. Also, while the breaks seem to be a good idea, there were GM's who kept going, which puts the other tables at a disadvantage towards finishing. If the plan is for all tables to stop, all tables should stop. I also have a question, were the GM's supposed to transition to a new encounter when the conditions were met, or have the players finish what they are doing? And how did it always seem within seconds of an area opening that the success bar would jump 20%?
Marshals were at their positions (or should have been) by no later than 730.
GMs are required to be at their tables at 730, HOWEVER, they then get pulled into a signals meeting for the Special which takes 15-20 minutes and there's no good fix for that based on personal experience on both sides of the equation.
How do you know if the other table GMs were 'pushing ahead' or simply 'catching up'? I know that at least some tables were using the 'break time' to tie up loose ends of the previous encounter.
Perhaps the Specials I was signalling for were on a different plane of existence, but 20% didn't get reached in most cases until about ten to twenty minutes into a given section, with perhaps one or two outliers.
Announcement: The ******* condition is now in effect, please moveto the required encounter area for XXXXXX
Look up at the board
Then my table GM wonders alloud "How are they already reporting success for XXXXX.
This happened 3 times during assault.
So maybe you were on another plane of existance, but I wasn't alone on mine.
Marshaling: this has been steadily improving, I still think that positioning them based on the banners, which cannot be seen as you enter the Sag, is a less than ideal system, but they did seem to have a bit more command of the crowds this year.
Specials: I started another thread on this already. I have yet to make it to the end of a special. I think the timing Ned's to be a bit more rigorous. I would start marshaling at 730, GM's must be at their table no later than 755. At 8 Tonya grabs the mic for no more than 6-10 minutes of announcements, and then there are no other non-scenario related announcements until the scenario ends. Also, while the breaks seem to be a good idea, there were GM's who kept going, which puts the other tables at a disadvantage towards finishing. If the plan is for all tables to stop, all tables should stop. I also have a question, were the GM's supposed to transition to a new encounter when the conditions were met, or have the players finish what they are doing? And how did it always seem within seconds of an area opening that the success bar would jump 20%?
I do understand the scheduling problem, but Paizo does tend to be very friendly towards their customers, if enough of us ask, they may wait until after. Before won't work because the Ennines aren't announced before the timeslot starts.
I wish I had posted this before everyone headed down to Gencon, but I have a request for the management of the Gencon special. Every year Paizo continues to produce excellent products, and the PFS crew produces amazing adventures. However, Ennies announcement at the Gencon special puts these two at odds. Every year the Sagamore is filled with people who love pathfinder, all enjoying a game with a story narative that gets interrupted by the Ennies announcement. My suggestion, and request, is to hold that announcement until after the special is concluded. I think we will still be there waiting to share your triumph.
In conclusion, Pathfinder is awesome, Pathfinder society is amazing and I'm looking forward to Starfinder. Keep doing what you are all doing, it's greatly appreciated.
1. Pick an identity (usually vigilante) and stick to
I stil can't understand this strategy. In vigilante guise you get your vigilante abilities, but not social. In social guise you get both. If you are going to choose one or the other, the choice seems simple to me.
I've been running a vigilante pretty steadily for the past few months. I have used my vigilante identity exactly once, otherwise I stay in social guise and use vigillante talents without worrying about the loss of the crying bonus. Picked a psychometrist, and I'm basically playing a full BAB occultist.
And here I thought this might be the promised "revisit and explain after a few months." Well, th new guide should be released soon. ::fingers crossed::
While I'm unhappy with the changes, I'b be happy just to have some verbiage in the AR or CC that allows me to continue using my item (with the new rules) without buying a new book that I had not otherwise planned on purchasing.
The official word we got was that our game is "Too well established", so it doesn't warrant support because it isn't likely to generate new players anyway.
*backfoot headscratch*
1) keeping the place running helps too: more dms= less burnout= keeping the place going.
2) People do join well established groups, i think half of our new people have just walked in as we were setting up shop.
3) Most of those con DM's they're always looking for get their feet wet as store DMs.
Well, RVC says no, so, no support for us. Nothing to do about it, no sense whining about it.
Is this up and running anywhere yet? It seems all of the applications in my area were denied.
We ad hocced something together for this month, but i'm the head cat herder for our venue and got the regional support package while sleeping overnight in the port authority to get to a convention. Lasts weeks session was delayed for this week so we could accommodate someone coming home from spring break (you know it's a small venue where you can move the game for one person...)
The official word we got was that our game is "Too well established", so it doesn't warrant support because it isn't likely to generate new players anyway.
I've been playing a psychometrist vigilante. I went the exact opposite route. Using a vigilante talent in social person only invalidates the crying protection, but has no other penalties associated. At Lviv 4 I only have the one social talent, and I picked up social grace, so I have a bonus to some social skills, but otherwise he's a slightly more fragile fighter with skill points.
I have seen people who say to play in vigilante guise all the time, but if you are only going to pick one, I'd stick with social.
