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I just wanted to toss a question out there.
Given a 4 to five person table is ideal, games don’t always happen in ideal circumstances.
Even though in the Pathfinder society organized play rules, the hard ceiling of 7 people at a table supersedes the “play play play” rule, which rule do you think should have more weight to it? The “play play play” rule which allows the GM to bend the rules a bit to allow players at the table, or the rules in the book as written?
What do your think? What is your opinion?
In your opinion, which is more important, finding ways to include players at the table, or adhering to the pathfinder organized play rules which may very well result in excluding people from a game?
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Have you ever enjoyed a society game that had more then 7 players? Have you ever enjoyed one with 7?
I would rather sit out a game then get into a crowded one.
The correct way is to Split the group and get one of the players to GM. It is always a good idea for a Organizer to have 1 GM ready just in case.
Better to have 2 Tables of 3 and 4 then one table of 8, because that would be a terrible gaming experience IMO.
I personally would never break the 7 rule.
What Dragnmoon said. But then, I do not enjoy any rpg session where the number of players goes above 5 or 6. I also do not see how a PFS table at max size, or even over, could ever get everything in a scenario done within the 4 hour time limit if that limit is properly enforced, especially at the higher levels.
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Have you ever enjoyed a society game that had more then 7 players? Have you ever enjoyed one with 7?
I would rather sit out a game then get into a crowded one.
The correct way is to Split the group and get one of the players to GM. It is always a good idea for a Organizer to have 1 GM ready just in case.
Better to have 2 Tables of 3 and 4 then one table of 8, because that would be a terrible gaming experience IMO.
I personally would never break the 7 rule.
+1
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You ask which rule should have more weight - and I clearly would say the 7 peope hard ceiling.
Are there circumstances where you could break that? Likely - but they will be very rare. I don't say they never existed.
I did see an example discussed here at a Canadian store where this happened once. But I think in 19 out of 20 cases the hard ceiling should prevail.
I don't think it will help to discuss the 1 out of 20 cases (just my finger in the air assumption - there is no hard data behind it) as they all will be unique and no matter what ruling you do - you don't want to advertise that this might be an option.
And in the end a rule needs to be there to do best in the majority of cases. You will seldom find a rule that works in 100% of cases as the best option - no matter how hard you try. But the hard ceiling is the better long time solution - even if it inflicts occasional pain.
Just my opinion
Thod
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My general experience has been that 7 as a hard limit is the absolute max. Even with the full table of 7, there are times I find that even encounters a tier up can be too easy for a table of 7 people by sheer virtue of how many actions get to occur before the evil guys get to go. For example...
I had a table of 7, with three level 2s and four level 1s. Having run them through the first part in the prior slot, I was well aware as I looked at the module that the encounters at 1-2 were going to be steamrolled in a handful of rounds each. With their consent, I ran it at 3-4.
They still destroyed the rival group of Pathfinders. The troll at the entrance to The Temple was obliterated when he was beaten on initiative and two wizards began throwing down Color Sprays and Grease spells. The third moved in to clean up with his fire spells (Fire Elementalist) while the a two handed weapon fighter took huge chunks out.
Most of the other fights were, at best, just a matter of NPCs knowing how to play the stall tactic game to try and outlast the fewer HP, lower AC PCs. It didn't save them. There was significant trouble with the Giant Scorpion, but I've been hearing that many tables even at tier had trouble with it to the point of just leaving it alone entirely.
Point being, it's hard to structure encounters which challenge 7, much less 8+ PCs even when you play things up. Either they still destroy an encounter when the BBEG rolls bad or they get to a BBEG who can obliterate them all. Or, you go the safe route and stick closely to tier and the module is over in a couple of hours, which isn't all that fun.
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What do your think? What is your opinion?
Interesting that I just hit the worst-case scenario last night at my weekly event. All of my GM's were off for personal reasons, so it was up to me to run #43 The Pallid Plague. Eight players showed. Had it not been that one of the players already played it, I would have been forced to make a decision...send someone home or let it play out. This is where your players have to help you make the correct decision which is in everyone's best interest. I am not a proponent of breaking the core guidelines, but in the end, I want everyone to have fun. If the 7-player cap would have run contrary to that goal, I would have broken it. The 8th player preferred not to play play play with a pregen and decided to stay to run my initiative board and help keep the combat encounters moving along. This was a great help with a 7-player table. I just wish I could give him a reward within the society for his efforts. As it is, I owe him a favor.
Aside from the table size, I had another issue, party mix. Three 1st level, two 3rd's, a 6th, and a 7th (APL 4.1 including a +1 for table size). Normally, you cannot play up/down more than one sub-tier, but the encounters 3-4 tier was too easy for the 6&7, but the 6-7 encounters would have crushed the level one's. Again, what do I do, send players home? So I mixed the encounters using some the tier 6-7 mooks and tier 3-4 "heavies" and BBEG. Combined with some of the unique features of the scenario, it was a good challenge and produced a few funny moments.
Did I technically follow the RAW? No, but everyone had fun and nothing happened that effected the integrity of the game. These are the times when the judgments of the event coordinator, GM's, and/or VC need to have the flexibility to ensure that everyone has fun without "breaking" the game.
What would you have done?
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Aside from the table size, I had another issue, party mix. Three 1st level, two 3rd's, a 6th, and a 7th (APL 4.1 including a +1 for table size). Normally, you cannot play up/down more than one sub-tier, but the encounters 3-4 tier was too easy for the 6&7, but the 6-7 encounters would have crushed the level one's. Again, what do I do, send players home? So I mixed the encounters using some the tier 6-7 mooks and tier 3-4 "heavies" and BBEG. Combined with some of the unique features of the scenario, it was a good challenge and produced a few funny moments.
Did I technically follow the RAW? No, but everyone had fun and nothing happened that effected the integrity of the game. These are the times when the judgments of the event coordinator, GM's, and/or VC need to have the flexibility to ensure that everyone has fun without "breaking" the game.
What would you have done?
What set of awards did you give out? This is why I dislike the idea of have 3 sub tiers for one scenario.. The best would have been for the 7th and most likely the 6th make new level 1 characters. that 11/7 = 1.5+1 for 7 people = 2.5 rounded up to APL 3 run it at 3-4.
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Ran a 9-player game once, due to my back-up GM bowing out (the aforementioned Canadian store example - nice to know I've gained a little bit of infamy! ;)
Will never do it again. Ever. Will run two simultaneous tables and run back and forth between rooms before I do that again. (Although doing it once did make alternate GMs come out of the woodwork, and now I'm even ready should I need a third table to accomodate walk-ups.)
Especially if you have a bunch of new players - I'm not sure playing a game with 7+ folks will be a better introduction to PFS than being turned away because it's full. Not enough time per player, encounters are easy anyway and even more so at 7+ players, so people will get the feeling that PFS is just like roleplaying, but without the "role" or "playing" part. Bad marketing. (And, no better marketing solgan exists than, "Sold out!")
Of course, it should never be newbies who get turned away - I've told my tables that if we don't have enough GMs then I'll fill the tables in order of reverse-seniority - that also helped encourage some new GMs!
"Play play play" is a great rule to get around things like different levels at the same table, replays, etc. But more than 7 players kills the game for everyone. Really, don't do it. Run two games back-to-back, ask one player who's your friend to sit out or assitant GM instead and run some monsters, send one player out for pizza, ANYTHING else than running more than 7 players. Really.
.....I just wish I could give him a reward within the society for his efforts. As it is, I owe him a favor.Aside from the table size, I had another issue, party mix. Three 1st level, two 3rd's, a 6th, and a 7th (APL 4.1 including a +1 for table size). Normally, you cannot play up/down more than one sub-tier, but the encounters 3-4 tier was too easy for the 6&7, but the 6-7 encounters would have crushed the level one's. Again, what do I do, send players home? So I mixed the encounters using some the tier 6-7 mooks and tier 3-4 "heavies" and BBEG. Combined with some of the unique features of the scenario, it was a good challenge and produced a few funny moments.
Did I technically follow the RAW? No, but everyone had fun and nothing happened that effected the integrity of the game. These are the times when the judgments of the event coordinator, GM's, and/or VC need to have the flexibility to ensure that everyone has fun without "breaking" the game.
What would you have done?
Two things for you.
First, if you had already gotten GM credit for running that scenario, you could have listed the player who helped you as the GM and let him have the GM credit for one of his characters, that is, if he had not run it before.
And second, I am sure there is plenty of rule bending or breaking like this happening at PFS games run from private locations, such as someone's home, but this type of stuff should not happen at game store events or conventions, otherwise, some players are going to be eventually disappointed in what they can or can't do. How would you react if all you had done was play PFS in home games and then you got to go to a convention and tried to play only to find out some of what happened in those home games was actually against the rules?
There can't be three different sets of rules: one for home games, one for store events and one for conventions. That reminds me too much of the stupidness of some sports where the rules change as you go from high school to college to the pros.
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I agree that the hard limit is seven. We book our tables up to six players for each of the three tables per slot and then take names for the waiting list. At the end of the day, we have three tables of six and have to turn away a few players.
I am ok with this. Groups of seven or more suck and we don't have the room to add a 4th table. The people who are turned away immediately sign up for the next game day so it is not a big deal. When play, play, play creates a crappy experience, I ignore it. It will do more damage than good.
I agree that there should be one set of rules for all occasions. I run games at the home (10 total in the past year), coordiante games at the game shop (100+ tables) and help at Cons (Three so far) and we use the same rules at every event.
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There can't be three different sets of rules: one for home games, one for store events and one for conventions. That reminds me too much of the stupidness of some sports where the rules change as you go from high school...
Okay, so in my case, I had no available GM to split the table. The level 6 and level 7 had no prepped 1st level PC, and they would not play a pregen. With one brand-new player at the table do I risk creating a scene and telling the two high levels that they cannot play because the majority are lower sub-tier? Granted I can have off-line discussions with them about how their decision is having a negative affect, but in the end, I cannot control which PC they play unless I deny them a seat at the table. PFS is still relatively new, and I do not want to do anything to influence a player to leave because he feels cheated, real or imagined. In the end, everyone had a good time. Isn't that the reason to play in the first place? While this solution will not work with all groups or every session, it did last night. Being rare (1st time), I do not expect this issue to occur again anytime soon, but if it did, I would again base my decision on what is in the best interest of the players having fun. That may not work for everyone, but it has for us so far. No one earned rewards outside of legal play, and resources were not unreasonably spent. Is that such a serious affront to the society?
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Personally I can't stand tables of more then 6.
I will not play at them as a player, having left both home games and PFS games to avoid such a situation. I have GMed a couple tables of 7 but when asked to GM a table of 8 I said I would not as it would both be against the rules and unpleasant to me. Personally I would prefer a hard limit of 6 but I understand the recommended limit of 6 with a hard maximum of 7.
Of course then I see convention scheduling with all their tables set to a maximum of 7 players and begin to see the problems with "play play play" rules being abused as the norm rather than being used in extreme situations.
For the specific situation mentioned above your 6th and 7th level PCs can play with your lvl 1 & 2 PCs assuming you have a 1-7 adventure and you play subtier 3-4. Is this a particularly good idea, or recommended? I don't think so but it's doable if your goal is to be as inclusive as possible.
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Yes, it was a 1-7 mod, so all the players were within the limits. Mixing 1st and 6-7 is not a good idea, but in my case, outside of refusing to seat them, there wasn't any choice.
Running a table of seven is not preferred. I don't think that the players or the GM will have as much fun. At conventions, I have rarely seen a situation where tables of 7+ are needed. But in a local/home environment with limited GM resources, the risk is there. I prefer a table of 6 because (1) that usually guarantees a good mix of classes/abilites, and (2) it can push the APL to the next sub-tier. Most have expressed that the challenges are on the weak side (especially for optimized PC's), so playing up, particularly in the low-tier mods creates a better challenge. Besides, the players like the idea of better rewards. This does not hold true in high-tier mods, where playing up is usually a death dealer.
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Aside from the table size, I had another issue, party mix. Three 1st level, two 3rd's, a 6th, and a 7th (APL 4.1 including a +1 for table size). Normally, you cannot play up/down more than one sub-tier, but the encounters 3-4 tier was too easy for the 6&7, but the 6-7 encounters would have crushed the level one's. Again, what do I do, send players home? So I mixed the encounters using some the tier 6-7 mooks and tier 3-4 "heavies" and BBEG. Combined with some of the unique features of the scenario, it was a good challenge and produced a few funny moments.
. . . What would you have done?
I keep a folder of unplayed characters, lvl 1, in case I run into a situation where my higher level PC's are a poor fit or there are new players available to play. I find it hard to believe that players with enough experience to have 6th & 7th level PC's didn't have anything ready to play. Did you suggest to them that they should do this for next time? (I really overkill it myself and have one of each major class ready.)
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As do I. Having a PC prepped and ready for all contingencies is something everyone should do. Unfortunately, not all players do this. Having GM'd something in the neighborhood of 75 events, yes, I made all the suggestions typical of avoiding this problem. The issue can still arise where a player may have an alternative character, but does not want to play it. In this case, the level 7 had a backup fighter-2, but there were already two fighters and two rangers in the party. He did not want to be the fifth marshal PC. Also, Pallid Plague is a wilderness adventure with some druidic aspects, so I can understand why he wanted to use his druid-7. My only recourse was to let him play and make adjustments to the scenario during play, or refuse to sit him at the table. That is something I have yet to do to anyone.
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Dragonmoon, Enevhar, thank you both for taking the time to answer my post and share your opinions.
Dragonmoon I happen to agree with both of you, 4 to 5 players is the ideal number of players at a table.
And Dragon moon you are correct if one finds oneself with more then seven players at a table, the “hard Ceiling” rule says you have to split the table and have one of the other players GM a second table.
Have I had fun playing in a society game with more then 7 players? I will admit, that as a player, I do not think I have played at a table larger then 7 players.
Have I enjoyed a pathfinder game with more then 7 players? I have. Is it preferable? No. But sometime we have to improvise. Last year while playing at my local gaming store, Toy City, in New Hampshire, we decided to run the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. We tended to have 2-3 regular DMs in that group, and ithe group’s numbers would fluctuate from 4 to 14 for the Saturday night game. In that store there was space for two other tables, but they were often full as well. Our GM was a good one. We were then “blessed “ with 10 people who regularly wanted to play. There simply was no space to make a second table, even though the main GM and I were planning to split up the Adventure path and GM certain sections ourselves, to give the other a break. We could have very well run two parallel games. There just wasn’t the space. We made the best of it and had fun. If you do a search on the Paizo site for “Toy City Keene NH, Curse of the Crimson Throne Campaign Journal” you will find the journal I kept of the campaign while I was a part of it. I’m sure it can use a heavy dose of editing.
Evenhar Aldarion, you also bring up a good point, I don’t think one can get everything done in a scenario in a 4 hour convention time slot.
Let me bring up a couple of examples from personal experience. There has been two instances where I have been Gming a PFS table at a game store, and more then seven players showed up to play . On Monday May 20, 2010, I GMed the scenario #16 To scale a dragon. We had, I believe, five scheduled players and I believe three walk ins. On Monday July 12 2010, I GMed the scenario #37 the Beggar’s pearl., We had seven players at the table, and one walk in who was a brand new player. In both of these instances even though there were other players who could have stepped up and GMed ( one of them was the GM I would alternate Monday nights with) There were no tables for us to spill over to. The game store was full.
I decided to let everybody play. Did I have to modify the scenario to account for a larger number of players? Yes. Did I have to cut out encounters? Yes.
I didn’t want to kick anyone out. It was not an ideal situation, but we made the best of it and I think on the whole people had fun.
I guess my opinion runs contrary to many of the other posters. I am willing to break the hard ceiling, if there isn’t the space for another table nor another willing GM to start a second table. I do not like to send players away, especially new ones. Is this an ideal situation? No. Do I prefer a smaller sized table? Yes. But I think that sometimes we have to recognize that the situation on the “ground” at the gaming table is different from the situation rules of PFS organized play assumes, and sometimes I think we need the flexibility to find a way to make things happen, especially if it involves getting a new player into the game.
Again thank you for all of your posts. This will make for some good reading. I will do my best to write a few more comments after I have read the rest of this thread.
Again thank you.
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I have been able to read the rest of the thread, and it has been a good read.
First off Dragonmoon, Enevhar Aldarion, Michael Griffin Wade, ( is that a Demi Litch Avatar I see? ), Cblome59, Thod, David Harrison, Bdk86, Twilightknight, Capt Kristov, Lamplighter, Dave the Barbarian, Mattastrophic, AxeMurder0, Gorbacz, Todd Lower, I want to thank you all for taking the time to voice your opinions.
Michael Griffin-wade, thank you, suggesting that other players step up to run a game, particularly after a they play in a large group, seems like a good one. I will try to remember to use that tip in the future.
Twilight knight Thank you for you kind comments. Having another player run the iniative order and keep the combat moving, particularily with a large group is a great idea. I just may steal it if you don’t mind.
Twilight knight, I have also had to deal with the issue of party mix, both in terms of class and level. Your suggestion of mixing the monster levels Is a good one.
With the “To Scale the Dragon” scenario, where I chose to break the hard ceiling of seven players, I had a spread of player classes and levels as well; some of them were fresh new players to pathfinder as well. With the big monster fight, the monster could have easily chewed up the party and eaten some of the characters swallowing them whole. Come to think of it after a few rounds of “nom noming” on the party, it probably would have burped, and gone back to its lair. I decided to give the party a surprise round, and a couple of other rounds, while the monster was closing, for the party wizard to burn through a fire ball scroll, and cast the pair of memorized fire balls on the Monster. I made sure the monster directed his damaging attacks at the higher level PCs, I made sure the brand new 1st level PCs experienced “near misses”, and I think had the monster knock their first level pcs into snow banks with its thrashing about. I wanted to make sure everyone was enjoying the game, and felt as if they were contributing in some way to the fight. Was I sticking to RAW completely? No. I was trying to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves.
I do remember one point, where one of the “walk ins” wanted to look up the monster statistics in the Bestiary because he thought I was forgetting one of the monsters damaging special abilities. I thanked him, told him that I appreciated his attention to fairness, but that I didn’t remember (I did, I just didn’t want to use it for fear of decimating the party) and could we possibly look up the statistics after the encounter, I said I preferred to run with what we had. I think he was shushed by one of the players at the table, and I think another player quietly pulled the bestiary he had in his hand and put it into another pile of books.
Perhaps I should have had a second scenario prepared to run, but I didn’t. Also if we were GMing we would either clear the scenario we were going to run with the coordinator, or let him suggest a scenario to run. I was running those games at a store called Game Theory in Raleigh NC.
I just wanted to also take a moment to put a shameless plug in for my friend MillerHero, who is running the Pathfinder Society in that area. The games were being run at Game Theory. When I left at the end of august/ start of September, PFS games were being run two nights a week, one on Monday night, and a second on Thursday night. On the Monday nights, there was usually one full table being run, and on Thursday nights 4-5 tables. Last weekend I had to go back to Raleigh, and I was able to both take in a Thursday and a Monday game, and I also got to go to the Mace Convention in nearby High point NC for the weekend between the Thursday games. From what I could see the society had grown. On Thursday night Millerhero hosted a game at his house, (Thank you), I think to take some of the pressure off of Game theory, I think there were 5-6 tables, and on the Monday night game I went to, they now had two regular tables. More importantly then the robust PFS gaming group, I had allot of fun at both games. If any of you find yourselves in Raleigh, it is well worth sticking your head in Game Theory’s doors.
Todd Lower, your idea of keeping a folder of 1st level characters is a good one.
Everyone else again thank you for posting your opinions.
I am not advocating discarding the rules. I think they are there for a very good reason. I guess all I am saying that, in my opinion, it is far more important to be inclusive, rather then exclusive. I just think that we as GMs would hopefully have the wisdom to know when to apply rules, and how strictly, and hopefully we GMs would have the creativity to come up with innovative solutions when we find ourselves in those exceptionally rare situations where the rules might be getting in the way of, or causing problems for including people in and playing the game.
I am willing to “bend” some rules to make a game happen. I absolutely loathe sending players away, especially if they are new players. I don’t even like sending the “veterans” away, because they will be the ones who form the backbone of a gaming group, and they will be the ones who come back on a regular basis. Besides, I think it is good to mix in the veterans in with the new players.
I have rambled enough. Thank you all again for sharing your thoughts and opinions, while I do not necessarily share them I do not think that is a bad thing. I now have some good thoughts and ideas that I can apply to future Pathfinder games, weather PFS or a home game. Thank you.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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What do your think? What is your opinion?
I run weekly non-society games that have between 6 and 12 people.
I wouldn't recommend large (8+) game tables unless you are familiar and prepared to run large tables.
In other words, you need to run between players quickly, remind them that their turn is only "6 seconds" if they take more than is reasonable on their turn, beaf up the encounters in ways that make them more challenging but not overpowering or trivial.
In short, it takes a bit of experience and it isn't someone one should try if one doesn't do it often.