Venture-Agent, Virginia—Hampton Roads
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I had to take some time off game due to real life and now i am back.
So back in the swing of things and ran two games in the past week and now with the new rules i get to to gain some GM credit. Cool, all i want is the stars really so have i report my last two session i look at my total. I am think i have 15 session roughly in my belt and I only see a grand total of 6 reported. some of them only have 1 player in the report. I am 90% sure I did reported all my games granted sometime slow about it but they did go in. I am going to double check myself before I request a fix.
So now I am trying to scramble to figure out what I screwed up or is the server monster getting me? I am going with my human error guess and plan to go find what the heck I did run in the last 6 months as most of my players haven't changed.
In the past this wasn't a big deal. Players get their session sheet so if online reporting was a problem it was default to the sheets.
For us DM's the stars that we all want and cherish are from our online reports. Is their a procedure to report errors of data collection? Or is it email Josh and add to his every growing pile of "things to do"?
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The Session Reporting Monster seems most unkind.
I completely submitted some sessions from May & June of last year. The Monster indicates that these happened, but doesn't show the sessions themselves, and the players of those sessions are indicating that their characters are not credited with having played those sessions (in their own Character records).
What is a poor GM to do?
Should I re-enter the sessions?
CJ
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I realize that you guys might be doing everything correctly and are still getting screwed by a glitch that no one can nail down. Please consider these just suggestions and not any type of condescension.
I start by using the “Create New Event” option. I used to do the Ongoing Event when I first started but I found it very easy to screw up and overwrite previous sessions. Keeping each event separate is very helpful to my busy mind.
When I report a session, I start by entering a “1” in the Session # box. I know that’s so obvious, but sometimes it helps to point it out. If you are reporting multiple sessions in the same event, you need to enter the sessions sequentially. If this doesn’t make immediate sense to you, it is probably how your reports are getting eaten.
I use the Tab key to advance from field to field. When using a database, this is a good habit to fall into. If you need to go back to something, hold the Shift key down and then hit tab and you can go back instead of forward.
The GM # is your Pathfinder Society membership # without any -1, -2, etc. If you get an error message after you Tab out of the field, it’s OK. It’s a persistent error and all it means to me is things are going as expected. I’m so used to it, if I didn’t get it I would back out and start over. When you enter your name after your GM # (and acknowledging the error message), make sure that you spell your name just as it appears on the Paizo account you registered with the Pathfinder Society. I’m not sure it that matters, but it’s a good practice.
When I have finished entering each session, I will hit Update and let the page refresh. If I have another session to report I will hit “Save Changes And Report Another Session” (Sorry! I know this is painfully obvious!).
It is really important to enter the information 100% accurately the first time around. I have found that the session info in a player’s account is very stubborn and will not accept editing afterward, like a CD-R. An organizer can change the info on the event reporting side, but it will not be altered the player’s account after the first time the organizer exits from the session page. Get it right the first time, or be prepared to live with unhappy players.
If I am finished reporting a session, only then will I hit “Done For Now”. That will take me back to the event reporting page, where I click on Sessions next to [Clone/Edit/Report]. If the sessions look good and correlate to what I have on my session tracking sheets, I will go back and click on Report again, bring up session 1 again and click on “Mark This Event as Completely Reported”.
I have reported 88 events on the system (20 of those are multi-session conventions & gamedays) and I have made my share of user errors. Even after GMing over 150 sessions of PFS scenarios I’m not throwing stones because my house is definitely made out of hardness 1, 1 hit point material. Again, I apologize if this comes off as condescending. Consider this a shot in the dark to help other organizers who may be having the same problems, or are afraid to try reporting because of these stories.
I would recommend that you keep trying to report your sessions if they don't take the first time. What's the worst that can happen, right? I doubt they will suddenly appear on their own at a later date.
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Venture-Agent, Virginia—Hampton Roads
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I start by using the “Create New Event” option. I used to do the Ongoing Event when I first started but I found it very easy to screw up and overwrite previous sessions. Keeping each event separate is very helpful to my busy mind.
I think this ^ is my problem right here. My event is ongoing and the other DM uses the same thing and man it has been problematic at best. The more we look the more errors we see.
I am going to close the event and gather the info and re-submit using what you suggest.
Thank you Doug Doug
I talked this over with Ross and we think Doug Doug's assertion is correct. We're in the process of changing many aspects of the reporting system to avoid these issues.
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Venture-Agent, Virginia—Hampton Roads
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I talked this over with Ross and we think Doug Doug's assertion is correct. We're in the process of changing many aspects of the reporting system to avoid these issues.
I didn't mean to make that last post a stab at Paizo. I know you guys are working hard. Just we here are trying to stay organized in Virginia beach, Va and both the primary DM's travel for work and didn't keep copies of the older session sheets. An error on our part.
No worries, I didn't take anything you wrote as a "stab." I personally feel the reporting system needs to be improved and Ross is working hard on making that happen.