Good question. We'll discuss that and include a blurb about it in the Player's Guide.
We may have some interesting news about online PFS soon!
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Well, I was thinking more about getting someone to run them, as it's unlikely I'll be able to take part in the PFS with a face to face group. My group is currently tied up with Rise of the Runelords!
Anyway, people could run it pbp, or using some of the VTT software out there, along with chat rooms.
I plan to run them via Maptool. VTTs have been a godsend for me.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Well, I was thinking more about getting someone to run them, as it's unlikely I'll be able to take part in the PFS with a face to face group. My group is currently tied up with Rise of the Runelords!
Anyway, people could run it pbp, or using some of the VTT software out there, along with chat rooms.
It seems that pbp would take too long to allow for as many scenarios to be run as needed to keep up in terms of level with the rest of the season. Additionally, it would make the content of any given scenario available to anyone, whether they had already or hadn't played the scenario themselves. I don't know if this would be a problem, but it's something to consider about pbp.
Contributor
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I'd like to put in a plug for RoleplayMarket.com to support those who want to play PFS games online. It's an awesome play-by-post site that supports combat maps and other cool features, and the site's developer is really proactive.
I'm currently running three games there you can see them here:
Pathfinder: Epoch Rising - Using the Pathfinder RPG Alpha rules
Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords - D&D3.5
Scions of Varisia - D&D3.5
If possible, I'd like to run a game for the Pathfinder Society, myself.
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I'd like to put in a plug for RoleplayMarket.com to support those who want to play PFS games online. It's an awesome play-by-post site that supports combat maps and other cool features, and the site's developer is really proactive.
I'm currently running three games there you can see them here:
Pathfinder: Epoch Rising - Using the Pathfinder RPG Alpha rules
Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords - D&D3.5
Scions of Varisia - D&D3.5
If possible, I'd like to run a game for the Pathfinder Society, myself.
That site looks really good. I just joined.
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Contributor
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That site looks really good. I just joined.
Great! It really is a well-designed site. I spend way too much time prepping for these games because I want to make them visually interesting. I love the fact that I can edit maps from the PF modules and use them in my combat maps.
Here's the combat map I'm using for a barfight from one of the published modules. I will avoid a spoiler by not mentioning which one...
LINK
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Great! It really is a well-designed site. I spend way too much time prepping for these games because I want to make them visually interesting. I love the fact that I can edit maps from the PF modules and use them in my combat maps.Here's the combat map I'm using for a barfight from one of the published modules. I will avoid a spoiler by not mentioning which one...
LINK
Did you copy the tiles from the module one at a time? About how long does that take?
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Contributor
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Did you copy the tiles from the module one at a time? About how long does that take?
Fortunately, I didn't have to. I used my image editing software to crop the picture along the map's grid lines. Then, I uploaded the image as a single tile measuring "x" squares wide and "y" squares high. When I create the map in the game, I put that down as the only tile in the map, which I make with the exact same dimensions as the tile.
In order to avoid hijacking this thread, feel free to PM me on Roleplaymarket.com. My nick is "Niverian".
Cheers!
We may have some interesting news about online PFS soon!Please no Digital Initiative of playing the game online with a goofy interface... please no...
I LIKE my pencil and paper
Ha! Nothing like DDI. Never fear!
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Ha! Nothing like DDI. Never fear!We may have some interesting news about online PFS soon!Please no Digital Initiative of playing the game online with a goofy interface... please no...
I LIKE my pencil and paper
Good, we wouldn't want to wait a year past the announced release! :)
What Nick meant to say was that we might have some news in the future about someone else making the option of running Pathfinder Society games online a possibility.
Egads, we haven't the time or people to blunder our way through an online thingy-whatsit.
What Nick meant to say was that we might have some news in the future about someone else making the option of running Pathfinder Society games online a possibility.
Egads, we haven't the time or people to blunder our way through an online thingy-whatsit.
Word.
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Contributor
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Nick & John,
I just put up a post in which I bemoaned my inability to support PFS. However, even as I hit "submit post", it occurred to me that I'm already running three Pathfinder-related games (one adventure path, one Darkmoon Vale campaign, and one playtest) on Roleplaymarket.com. (If you're curious, check out the games "Scions of Varisia," "Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords," and "Pathfinder: Epoch Rising.")
If there is some movement on the online PFS front, is there any way I could volunteer to help? I'm not a programmer or anything, but I'm trying to do some interesting things with the games I run, now, so I may be able to help in some way.
I'd like to help, if I can.
Cheers!
Paris
What Nick meant to say was that we might have some news in the future about someone else making the option of running Pathfinder Society games online a possibility.
Egads, we haven't the time or people to blunder our way through an online thingy-whatsit.
Please go with a Mac compatible company. Pretty please. Seriously. I mean it.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Please go with a Mac compatible company. Pretty please. Seriously. I mean it.
All the Paizo computers are Macs so I imagine it would be a java application or some other OS-neutral system. That is, if they put the whole thing in the hands of one company to manage. It might just be that they allow people to play with the virtual tabletop program of their choice and submit the results as if it were being done in person over a real table.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I've had pretty good success running LG games via MapTool and Skype. Voice helps ALOT as otherwise things run longer. Well, then again LG mods were released in secure PDFs meaning you couldn't copy and paste the text. Is it safe to assume PFS mods would be distributed in the same format?
None of their other pdf's have this restriction, so probably not.
I have had gaming success with Maptool and Skype.
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Going to bump this as we've been discussing this very issue on the Paizo Chatroom, and given that Josh has said he's working on the PFS Guide Version 1.2, I figured it was a good time to do so. (Though, I understand completely if rules for online play gets held off till season 1)
Basically we've been brainstorming over on the boards. The only obstacle we can think of to online play is the whole Chronicle Sheet at the end. After all, with online play, you don't have the DM physically there to sign and check the accuracy of the Chronicle Sheet, which ensures that later DM's can trust it. However, one possible solution to this was mentioned, which is that DM's fill out Chronicle Sheets for all the players at their end, and then either mail them to the players, or scan them in and e-mail them to the players.
Would this be doable? Does anyone else on the boards have ideas, or perhaps other obstacles to online play that I've not seen?
P.s. I'm glad your feeling better Josh!
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I just replied to a message on the OnlineGameDay Yahoo! Group which is used to co-ordinate Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms (etc) play online. There's been quite a bit of interest there, though understandably much of it has been focused on the PFRPG.
In writing my reply one other thing struck me: the campaign administrators might be concerned about unverifiable characters. By which I mean - if I turn up to a face-to-face game and say "I've got this special thing on an SC, which allows me to do x, y, and z", you can read it. You can see that I do in fact have it, rather than having had it crossed out because I didn't complete that bit of the adventure, or it's a one-shot thing which I've used. This is one example of a range of things where a face-to-face GM might want to have a look at a character - and it's not fixed by emailing a character sheet to the GM in some fashion so he can check that you are doing the maths right in various places and do in fact have the prereqs for this or that feat.
Now online LG (and to an even greater extent, online LFR) simply ignore this and decide it's not a problem. I've not played online as much as some, but in the ten or fifteen games I've played, I've never had a GM query whether I am entitled to whatever thing I'm claiming. GMs even allow the use of RPGA reward cards in online games, and there's no way to verify that the player actually owns the card he's intending to use. I think this is the way to go, to be honest - there's no real benefit to cheating, and trying to devise systems which make it hard or impossible just add restrictions which inconvenience the vast majority who do not cheat. This is the LFR approach - LFR paperwork is not signed by GMs any more, so it wouldn't be hard for players to cheat, even face-to-face, but the RPGA attitude is that it's not worth putting significant restrictions in place as so very few people would do such a thing.
The RPGA tried the alternative, incidentally - I don't know when current Paizo staff moved on from LG administration, but the approach of Chris Tulach's predecessor as head of RPGA campaigns was to push an online tracking system, leading to Legacy of the Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, and Xen'drik Expeditions, where the definitive character record was online, and you could only know what rewards your PC had received by waiting for the event to be reported and going online. The system was horrid (WotC aren't very good at in-house database design and management, particularly in an area which always seemed under-staffed and under-funded) and errors, unreportable scenarios, etc were rife. It could have worked with a more robust system, but was something of a disaster. LFR is going to use the back-end of that system as a secondary/backup to paper-records, but has determined that the paper is the definitive version.
Online PFS would be a great thing (and there's a large online LG community which is obviously looking for a new campaign at the moment!) and the issues are not insurmountable. But I can understand the reluctance to move away from the 'let's stop anyone from cheating' model, and online play is difficult to reconcile with that (LGR and MoH were not allowed to be played online, and online restrictions in other campaigns only began to be relaxed after SRM resigned).
Online play won't be in 1.2 and probably won't be in season 0. I am, however, exploring options that may make this possible in the future.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Online play won't be in 1.2 and probably won't be in season 0. I am, however, exploring options that may make this possible in the future.
I'm not trying to be snarky here, but honestly, what is to keep people from playing online anyway and either mailing signed hardcopies of Chronicles or faxing/scanning them and sending them electronically to players? I understand that it opens up the possibility of cheating, but a "home group" that always plays online together would catch stuff. And if someone were playing online and at cons/in-store, a hardcopy of their past Chronicles would enable other GMs to check their numbers face to face.
I just think that people could already be doing it and no one knows. Just because there's no system in place to regulate it doesn't mean that people can't do it.
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Going to bump this as we've been discussing this very issue on the Paizo Chatroom, and given that Josh has said he's working on the PFS Guide Version 1.2, I figured it was a good time to do so. (Though, I understand completely if rules for online play gets held off till season 1)
Basically we've been brainstorming over on the boards. The only obstacle we can think of to online play is the whole Chronicle Sheet at the end. After all, with online play, you don't have the DM physically there to sign and check the accuracy of the Chronicle Sheet, which ensures that later DM's can trust it. However, one possible solution to this was mentioned, which is that DM's fill out Chronicle Sheets for all the players at their end, and then either mail them to the players, or scan them in and e-mail them to the players.
Would this be doable? Does anyone else on the boards have ideas, or perhaps other obstacles to online play that I've not seen?
P.s. I'm glad your feeling better Josh!
This is how it was generally done in the online Living Greyhawk games that I played.