thoughtfulmonkey's page

Instantly you're flung forward as the emergency brakes engage and a deafening sound of metal grinding against metal fills the train.

The screeching continues as you round the corner, and you feel the carriage tilt as the wheels on the right-hand side lift slightly off the track, before slamming back down.

When the train eventually comes to a stop, it's only a short distance away from a station.

Having braced themselves, all of the passengers are unharmed. A vesk passenger was hit on the head by a handrail that had come loose, but the only injury is a small bump.

Obozaya wisdom: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (14) + 0 = 14

Obozaya plays a good game, but Desir’s unorthodox strategy of chaining supernovas turns the tide at the last second.

"I thought I'd lost my edge there for a while." She says. "Good game though."

Desir is impressed by your playing skills and gives everyone who beat her an autographed jersey for the Diasporan Devastators.

See the handouts.

"Sorry," She says to Obozaya. "those are the rules. Maybe we can play again later."

I had a read through bounty #7 and am ready to run it.

In terms of running a scenario as written, I think players who have experience with society games know what they're signing up for. It becomes an extension of a player's requirement to "bite the hook". Maybe the character would normally make a different choice, but but you have to look for a reason why they'd want to stay on track.

I guess the biggest source of potential friction would be from players new to society play.

On the topic of ensuring that players have fun, society play takes away some of the options that might normally be available. Tailoring the story to highlight PCs' strengths or weaknesses, bringing in NPCs to help reveal the PCs' backstory, etc. And with PbD, I don't think you can assume that a quiet player isn't having fun and needs some prompts and opportunities to join in. They could just be busy.

So I'd be interested to hear about the techniques people are using to help players have fun.

I think a main one is ensuring that you respond to each players actions. If four players post their actions, and one is the "correct" one to move the plot forward, it's probably tempting to latch onto that one. Or if two players attack a creature, but the first attack finishes it off. I think it would be important to show that each player's actions affect the world, even if they didn't affect the story progression.

I suppose similar to GM Lantern, I think the GM's main job is play the role of the world that the PCs inhabit. That includes the personalities and motives of the NPCs as well as the laws of physics, magic, or whatever else the rules define.

Although I think that Organized Play has its own characteristics. There'll be a very specific story to tell, with little room for deviation. So I'd guess the GM needs to come up with plausible reasons why the PC's creative idea isn't possible, or has some interesting effect that doesn't actually affect plot progression.

Koshtuk spends the whole explanation anxiously looking around, expecting a poacher to walk around the corner.

Hi all. I'm Matthew, and in the real world I'm a technical writer for a software company.

I'm relatively new to TTRPGs compared to everyone else so far. I played a bit of 5e face-to-face, GMed some Starfinder face-to-face, played a handful of Starfinder pbd, and one PF2e game pbd.

Quite simply I'd like to run some Starfinder games and for them not to be a disaster. But also to try something new and hopefully learn some broader knowledge and skills. I prefer sci-fi themes. So, although I have an interest in PF2e, it's mainly because I'll need to use that ruleset for SF2e eventually.

Random fact: My first ever post on the Paizo forums was deleted by admins. It was about an imperial to metric browser plugin that I'd created for Starfinder. It's all feet and pounds for me now.

Koshtuk nods solemnly. Yes. Much to think about. But then catches Asgrok laughing. Oh. Right. Ha ha. Good one.