I know it's a very minor character, but I think it would be awesome to see the ship from Precious Cargo return for a little update in Year 7. :)
My point was that the frequency these things come up for female + nonbinary GMs contributes to burnout and has led me to only GM for friends for the most part. That doesn't mean it's the only issue around GM recruitment that matters in this thread.
I'm not sure quite how to phrase this but I'll do my best. :) My comment about antagonism at tables was a mix of experiences as both a player and a GM. More so as a player, which led to not really wanting to jump in to GM organized play even though I have skills and experience with doing it now. So while the conversation about table rules and culture varying from lodge to lodge is helpful, it is somewhat separate from the issue I brought up. But the issue I brought up doesn't lend itself to solutions as easily, so I get that it's not something that fosters a conversation about solutions as well. The issue being subtle unfriendliness and antagonism that comes from gender bias. So not just questioning a GM more than usual because the GM is not a male, but also running commentary throughout the game to players who aren't men on "you should have said this" or "you should have done this in combat" which can be a real drag. Admittedly some players do this to everyone, lol. But it's been a feature of organized play that makes me hesitant to create any kind of public game on Warhorn for SFS. Sometimes it extends to things like only offering support in combat to other male players and ignoring other player characters even when it doesn't make sense strategically to act like that. But it's not quite bullying or harassment, so difficult to call out as a player, creating a bigger conflict than just sticking it out in an annoying game.
**"Often"** encounter GMs that make incorrect rulings? That is certainly news to me. I have no idea if this is more common in PF2 than Starfinder but the main problem I've seen is lack of GM retention due to unpleasant (not necessarily rule-breaking) players and the gender imbalance at tables occasionally creating a less than welcoming vibe for women and nonbinary GMs/players. I don't mean outright discrimination or anything but more subtle behaviors such as talking over, assuming non-men don't understand rules for their character, questioning in character decisions more than usual, and not aiding certain characters while helping and building rapport with others. I don't see this happen at every table but often enough with online play with strangers that it contributes to burnout. Player feedback and rules correction is cool. Questioning in character things and holding up play to be antagonistic is not. edit: As a side note, I find that these issues are less common at lodges that work to build a certain community, even if online. It tends to crop up more at cons and when hosting scenarios to a wide audience, such as a posting on a discord server with thousands of members. So this is perhaps an issue of dealing with the unfiltered public in general.
I've found this to be an issue that comes up in online society play. I play/run Starfinder only, so I'm not sure if the issues are the same or different with PF1/2. I think online org play in general contains players who are really invested in the worlds of their hobby, but don't have great social skills, or have bad habits with backseating other players' choices, or even backseating the GM. In spite of this I've been able to deal with conflicts either by deflecting or by telling players we need to move the story forward and not get too distracted. However, the overall experience has kinda burnt me out and I'm back to just running for and playing with people I know now. That consequence, I'm not sure how to prevent for myself or other GMs.
I know Paizo is providing Foundry support for new Starfinder scenarios, but I'm still using roll20 and by far the most time consuming thing about setting up tables is taking a screencap of each NPC and monster from the pdf, moving that screencap to the TokenStamp website to make it a circular image with a transparent background, then uploading that to a blank character sheet. I can't overstate how helpful it would be if all the pdfs had a page at the end that was just "here's circular tokens of monsters and NPCs that you can print out and use with your flipmat, or upload to a VTT."
Also an only Starfinder player here. Not just that, but have never played Pathfinder 1 or 2. Plenty experienced with White Wolf games in the 90s and 2000s, and loved Planescape and Shadowrun. (frankly just not very interested in standard fantasy settings overall) While the info we have now is extremely limited, these are my main thoughts. Pros:
* Compatability with PF2 means more attention on the series and maybe more frequent releases, plus things like licensed video games. * Equipment/wealth and starship combat never completely worked in this system (smoothly). * The barrier to entry with the crunchy ruleset is very high, and makes it hard to recruit players based on friendship rather than "well this nerd has played this for years and won't give up during character creation."
Cons:
* Will character death be more frequent due to loss of resolve points? * The imminent shelf life for character builds based on the still unreleased content in Enhanced (at least in Society play). This will still be a cool book, but it feels strange for it to have it's obsolescence announced before its release. * The flipside to the big plus of way more players (which usually helps to get more content): the con of a player base that might be more into the looter/shooter aspect than first contact, exploration, and some truly alien PC cultures, physiology, and lore. I know that last one might not be an actual problem in reality. But I think it's worth mentioning that there's fear that the con table experience (as opposed to home GM experience) could change. Overall this is more positive than negative for me. Don't let the fact that the negative points are mentioned last trick you into thinking otherwise. ;) |
