Anti-Pathfinder Society Faction Missions

[Rugult]

Chris Kenney wrote:

...Wow. Just....wow. Thanks for the warning on one particular scenario to avoid. I already did City of Strangers (and I damn near walked from the first one before my metagamey side justified that the writers couldn't possibly actually be doing what it looks like, and I was absolutely needed to make a fully legal table) but the Infernal Vault one just plain takes the cake.

Sadly, this was a problem with the original concept I had VS. what ended up in the published scenario after edits. I really hope people don't avoid it based off this one omission :$

In any event, I've attached my suggested corrections below as a spoiler.

Infernal Vault fix:

The documents were not supposed to be 'claimed' but instead preserved by PCs related to Cheliax. This means that Cheliax PCs would have the same goal as the Society (to stop Celeena), just with the added difficulty of ensuring the documents weren't destroyed by something like a stray fireball.

Instead I reworded the handout to say:

Ensure the documents Celeena searches for are not destroyed, at least in the hands of the Society we can be certain they will not end up with our enemies.

Then changed the Mission to:

PCs from the Cheliax faction who ensure that the documents on Celeena Deckland are not destroyed in act 3 earn 1 Prestige Award.

I hope that helps? :)

[teribithia9]

Rugult wrote:

Chris Kenney wrote:

...Wow. Just....wow. Thanks for the warning on one particular scenario to avoid. I already did City of Strangers (and I damn near walked from the first one before my metagamey side justified that the writers couldn't possibly actually be doing what it looks like, and I was absolutely needed to make a fully legal table) but the Infernal Vault one just plain takes the cake.

Sadly, this was a problem with the original concept I had VS. what ended up in the published scenario after edits. I really hope people don't avoid it based off this one omission :$

In any event, I've attached my suggested corrections below as a spoiler.

** spoiler omitted **

I hope that helps? :)

That would have been much, much better than what actually ended up in print.

[Rugult]

Quote:

That would have been much, much better than what actually ended up in print.

I don't dare dispute what our Paizo(Paizonian?) Overlords do. I just hope they don't get angry for me posting those spoiler blurbs from my original manuscript... >.>

[Chris Kenney]

Thanks man...but sorry. I really do have to treat the scenario as-published for PFS. If it were a home game I'd welcome your suggestions (I also probably wouldn't have nearly the same issues as this thread has spawned forth from me, again.) I won't be playing or running this one officially, though I might give it a look and run it "on the side" with some modification to slip it into another campaign.

[KnightErrantJR]

Michael Griffin-Wade wrote:

Yea, I'm not going to agree with you on this one. There is plenty of reasons to look around the buildings.

** spoiler omitted **

Its been a while since I ran it so I could have misremembered something, but:

Spoiler:

I thought you could look in the windows and see which building had the prisoners in them, so you didn't actually have to enter each building, checking for traps, etc., you just had to keep peeking in until you saw someone, and you knew which one was the one you were looking for.

But like I said, I could be misremembering the situation at this point.

[Atrius]

I thought the idea that the characters were members of their home faction was actually a secret from all the other pathfinders. Kind of like secret societies within the semi-secret Pathfinder society.

As a matter of fact, I think it is actually a secret note that you get at the start of each mission. What is to stop you from saying to the other players around the table that you are Osirian, but actually be Andoran? As long as the GM knows the truth.

[talbanus]

Atrius wrote:

I thought the idea that the characters were members of their home faction was actually a secret from all the other pathfinders. Kind of like secret societies within the semi-secret Pathfinder society.

As a matter of fact, I think it is actually a secret note that you get at the start of each mission. What is to stop you from saying to the other players around the table that you are Osirian, but actually be Andoran? As long as the GM knows the truth.

Who would do such a nefarious thing?

~Tagaron Glitterglade, 'loyal Taldane' since 4678~

[Mattastrophic]

Mark Moreland wrote:

Not giving XP isn't something I want to do unless a character dies. As it is, wealth progression is tied to the assumption that you go up a level after playing in three scenarios. If the rate of advancement slowed due to people playing scenarios and not getting XP for it, they'd have more treasure than they should for their level. I'd also worry that players would purposely throw missions so they could get more than 33 scenarios in under their PCs' belt before hitting 12th level.

Now that we have you on the line, I have a question...

Why is the wealth progression such a big deal?

And if it really is important, why are PCs allowed to break the wealth progression so easily? Why can PCs receive extra rewards for playing up out of their sub-Tier, or receive fewer rewards for playing down below their sub-Tier, if the progression is that important?

-Matt

[Mark Moreland]

Players playing up or down out of their subtier should be a finge occurrence, and will—in theory—even out over the course of a PC's career. Completely removing some sort of standardized wealth progression from the game is not something I'm willing to do, mostly because there are already people who abuse the few loopholes in the system to get far more wealth for their PC than is level appropriate.

[Dragnmoon]

Mark Moreland wrote:

Players playing up or down out of their subtier should be a finge occurrence, and will—in theory—even out over the course of a PC's career. Completely removing some sort of standardized wealth progression from the game is not something I'm willing to do, mostly because there are already people who abuse the few loopholes in the system to get far more wealth for their PC than is level appropriate.

Mark, In practice I think it is more common than you think.

It is at least in my experience.

[lrichter]

I think the factions are generally awesome. I agree sometimes players get more involved in the faction missions than in the Pathfinder Society missions but not all the time and especially not as much as should be expected:

Think about it:
1) Factions provide a handout players can refer to throughout the game which also reminds them to do something. Very good for the ADD players. While with Pathfinder Society missions the player gets a wall of "box text" at the VERY beginning of the game that usually says about the same thing from adventure to adventure ("I'm a Venture-Captain and you have to go do something..."). After that players just follow the trail of plot hooks. This is not criticizing the writing, this is just saying that if everyone is a member of the Pathfinder Society than adventure hooks get limited. I enjoy PFS adventures, Paizo has earned a lot off of me due to PFS, but I think being a member of the Pathfinder Society, as a character, can get repetitive.

2) By accomplishing your faction mission the player is doing something different than the other players; has a little bit of a different goal; and gets rewarded for their devotion to their faction. That's a big deal. The thing that I think made Greyhawk so successful was the introduction of regional meta-orgs. People like being vested in something, meaning they like to have a bit of say or stake in a thing or at the very least the option of doing something different. When everyone is just a Pathfinder, how do they really distinguish themselves from other players or pursue their own character goals. Being a Pathfinder has no rewards - neither RP rewards or mechanical rewards. You can't even rise in the ranks of the Pathfinder Society. I can't really communicate the devotion a player shows when they're vested. I saw players who were willing to write up small adventure reports (every adventure), get bossed around by NPC's in-game, and wait YEARS to become Knights of the Watch. And then once they were knights, boy-howdy did they get a kick out of it and bring a lot to the table in the process. That's what you get when you vest a player in the campaign.

3) Factions provide something that Greyhawk did not - each little handout sort of gives the player a reason to pay attention between combats and bring a little extra role-playing in order to accomplish a little mission. If I get this in exchange for losing a little RP involving the Pathfinder Society - that's a fair deal. The more RP I can get at a table the better. As a GM, when players have fun, then I don't care what part of the adventure provided it. So thumbs up to the authors for giving my players more than one way to have fun in an adventure.

I guess to sum up this long post (thanks for reading this far). I have been a big fan of factions since I encountered them in Living Xen Drix. I actually would love it if PFS would go the extra step and make more factions - like how Xen Drix had five big factions and then smaller factions within the bigger ones and I also have high hopes the new PF Chronicals: Faction Guide will be used in PFS because it is great and would add needed variety.

If GM's are having issues keeping the Pathfinder Society story relevant to their players then I would suggest looking at the silver lining - they are ignoring the story because they're having fun with the faction mission and fun = fun no matter where it comes from. Isn't that really the point afterall.

Well that's my two cents at least.

[Nevynxxx]

Atrius wrote:

I thought the idea that the characters were members of their home faction was actually a secret from all the other pathfinders. Kind of like secret societies within the semi-secret Pathfinder society.

As a matter of fact, I think it is actually a secret note that you get at the start of each mission. What is to stop you from saying to the other players around the table that you are Osirian, but actually be Andoran? As long as the GM knows the truth.

Indeed, I have a character built around this very concept.

Spoiler:

In my first PFS game the GM asked us to write our faction on a paper, and fold it, so the next person couldn't see it, then continue round the table. He then handed faction missions out. I remember the surprise on one players face when they worked out my faction, and the secret note passing, as they helped me succeed at the faction mission without giving things away to other players. It added a great depth to that first game.

[MisterSlanky]

Dragnmoon wrote:

Mark Moreland wrote:

Players playing up or down out of their subtier should be a finge occurrence, and will—in theory—even out over the course of a PC's career. Completely removing some sort of standardized wealth progression from the game is not something I'm willing to do, mostly because there are already people who abuse the few loopholes in the system to get far more wealth for their PC than is level appropriate.

Mark, In practice I think it is more common than you think.

It is at least in my experience.

Agreed, tenfold.

All it takes is a group of 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 (APL 1.5 + 1 for party size, forced round-up to 3) who decide they want higher rewards (which happens all the time since most groups seem to be optimized). That's just one example too. I'd say roughly a quarter of the games I've played in have 1-2 characters playing up (nobody ever seems to want to play down).

[Kyle Baird]

MisterSlanky wrote:

Dragnmoon wrote:

Mark, In practice I think it is more common than you think.

It is at least in my experience.

Agreed, tenfold.

I will counter that in SE Michigan, it's not a common occurance. Most groups don't seem to be optimized. In your example, our players would most likely play tier 1-2 unless encouraged to play up by their GM (due to the party make-up or type of scenario).

[LazarX]

Mark Garringer wrote:

I'm also going to continue to be very vocal about the fact that I feel like players are NOT encouraged to be Pathfinders first. The entire PA system works against that very assumption. There needs to be mechanical reason for the players to be loyal to the Society first.

Why? My characters do thier missions for the Pathfinders under the assumption that getting good with them benefits their faction in getting an agent on "the inside track". The Pathfinders are not the Harpers, there is no reason to assume that the organisation is "good" or that the Ten are anything other than an Illuminati-style cabal playing a long-term Xanatos gambit against every other faction on Golarion.

There are plenty of reasons for my character to do the Pathfinder buisness in addition to the faction missions, none of them require any love for the Decembervirate.

[Mark Garringer]

LazarX wrote:

Why? My characters do thier missions for the Pathfinders under the assumption that getting good with them benefits their faction in getting an agent on "the inside track". The Pathfinders are not the Harpers, there is no reason to assume that the organisation is "good" or that the Ten are anything other than an Illuminati-style cabal playing a long-term Xanatos gambit against every other faction on Golarion.

There are plenty of reasons for my character to do the Pathfinder buisness in addition to the faction missions, none of them require any love for the Decembervirate.

Because not character walking around in PFSOP should be a long term sleeper agent for a secret faction. It makes no sense at all. Sure, corner case and fringe characters. But EVERYONE? Not every 16 year old is coherent enough to join a faction and then spend 2-4 years of their lives being indoctrinated into a DIFFERENT organization and still come out with any kind of sense of self intact.

However, by having the faction PA system you have bought the institutional loyalty of the players. If you want the institutional loyalty of the players to be where it truly belongs (the Society) they will need a carrot as well. What's that word I don't like very much? Verisimilitude. It sort of shatters the appearance of truth to me.

[Chris Kenney]

Mark Garringer wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Why? My characters do thier missions for the Pathfinders under the assumption that getting good with them benefits their faction in getting an agent on "the inside track". The Pathfinders are not the Harpers, there is no reason to assume that the organisation is "good" or that the Ten are anything other than an Illuminati-style cabal playing a long-term Xanatos gambit against every other faction on Golarion.

There are plenty of reasons for my character to do the Pathfinder buisness in addition to the faction missions, none of them require any love for the Decembervirate.

Because not character walking around in PFSOP should be a long term sleeper agent for a secret faction. It makes no sense at all. Sure, corner case and fringe characters. But EVERYONE? Not every 16 year old is coherent enough to join a faction and then spend 2-4 years of their lives being indoctrinated into a DIFFERENT organization and still come out with any kind of sense of self intact.

However, by having the faction PA system you have bought the institutional loyalty of the players. If you want the institutional loyalty of the players to be where it truly belongs (the Society) they will need a carrot as well. What's that word I don't like very much? Verisimilitude. It sort of shatters the appearance of truth to me.

Thank you, Mark.

Of course, the last time I tried to bring this up I was told to stop poking at the man behind the curtain with a long stick.

[LazarX]

Mark Garringer wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Why? My characters do thier missions for the Pathfinders under the assumption that getting good with them benefits their faction in getting an agent on "the inside track". The Pathfinders are not the Harpers, there is no reason to assume that the organisation is "good" or that the Ten are anything other than an Illuminati-style cabal playing a long-term Xanatos gambit against every other faction on Golarion.

There are plenty of reasons for my character to do the Pathfinder buisness in addition to the faction missions, none of them require any love for the Decembervirate.

Because not character walking around in PFSOP should be a long term sleeper agent for a secret faction. It makes no sense at all. Sure, corner case and fringe characters. But EVERYONE? Not every 16 year old is coherent enough to join a faction and then spend 2-4 years of their lives being indoctrinated into a DIFFERENT organization and still come out with any kind of sense of self intact.

However, by having the faction PA system you have bought the institutional loyalty of the players. If you want the institutional loyalty of the players to be where it truly belongs (the Society) they will need a carrot as well. What's that word I don't like very much? Verisimilitude. It sort of shatters the appearance of truth to me.

You're mistaking the individual experience for the global one. The individual player characters are not part of the Golarian Canon. Ultimately there is just one group of characters that do each mission...the composite avatar that's drawn up by turned in session reports. So even if every player was a "sleeper" agent, collectively we all just represent about 12 or so "Pathfinders" in the canon population, we're easily outnumbered by the Shadow Lodge alone.