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I'm curious...
When it first came out I thought the idea of Factions & Faction missions were pretty cool and I even thought that having "competitions" between Factions was interesting.
And I thought it was the height of wisdom when Paizo, through a Frosty voice, declared that even if a zillion Society players sign up for Andoran and only two sign up for Qadira (cuz, really, Qadira?!?!), that Andoran wouldn't really -- for convention and game purposes -- get anything special. Afterall, how can we hold it against the 2 Qadirans that normal people would never want to be Qadiran?
And now that's changing.
Andoran, by a landslide -- duh, is superior.
... I'm curious,
How many gamers in The Society really care how well the various Factions do?
How many Society Gamers want to see one Faction get cooler every season?
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Well, based on the latest post, I don't see how Andoran characters will actually get anything cooler except for perhaps some sort of circumstance bonus while in Absalom.
Secondly, yes, I do care which faction "wins". Albeit, I doubt will ever see a winner, unless Paizo is on the verge of ending organized play and want to end the final season with a bang.
I care, because it makes me feel like my successes and failures have a real impact on the campaign as a whole. I like it.
I'm sure there will be many who don't care though. And that is of course ok if they don't.
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Well, based on the latest post, I don't see how Andoran characters will actually get anything cooler
Yeah, that's how I read it, too. And I can't really believe they would ever change that.
But couldn't each of the Factions do something similar: Andoran gets the shiny new symbol; Qadira changes one of its policies to try to make it more appealing, etc., etc.?
The problem being, of course, that changing a bit of minutia for each Faction each year can change why some people want to be in (or out of!) a Faction.
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yes, I do care
That's one.
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I'm sure there will be many who don't care though.
Thus my idea for the Thread.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Mark Sez that they're going to be basing stuff off of the percentage of PCs playing a given scenario from each faction who complete their mission objectives, rather than simply who gets the most Prestige.
So even if only two people sign up with Qadira, they still have a chance to see cool stuff for their faction.
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But couldn't each of the Factions do something similar: Andoran gets the shiny new symbol; Qadira changes one of its policies to try to make it more appealing, etc., etc.?
Perhaps you overlooked this blog post two weeks ago?
The five existing factions aren't going anywhere (though those that didn't perform as well in the last three seasons may see some shakeups) and mechanics for existing members to change factions will be outlined. We'll be dedicating a blog post to each of the ten factions in the coming months—beginning in two weeks with the most successful faction to date.
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I'm curious...
How many gamers in The Society really care how well the various Factions do?
I care because (to a varying degree) my characters care. My Andoran ne'er-do-well cares because he feels that his faction's success makes him shine more brightly. My Taldan knight cares because he has immense national pride (only exceeded by his own personal ego). My halfling summoner believes in the free trade principals that his native Qadira represents (so much so that he had a hard time relating to other viewpoints). The only one that doesn't really care is my 2nd Andoran -- a native Chelaxian that 'defected' more from the idea that going to Andoran would make it easier to climb up the professional and social ladder than if he remained in Egorian (I could have easily bound his interests to Cheliax ... and sometimes think I should have).
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Darn Tootin' Rootin' Right I Care.
There is only one real faction.
The General Goldfrapp the Naked Halfling TALDORAN Trebuchet of the Trebuchet Army in Absalom Faction.
And so people know, you are not allowed to make bigoted, hateful or racially insensitive statements on Paizo's forums. So if you say negative things about Taldor or Halflings or Naked Trebuchet's - you are violating the policies of Paizo's forums and I will report you.
Of course, Qadiran's suck and don't fall under any of the Paizo protections.
For the Glory of TALDOR!
General Goldfrapp the Naked Halfling TALDORAN Trebuchet
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As an overduchess of Taldor, proclaimed thus by the Baron Jacquo Dalsine at the conclusion of the Grand Convocation, the fate of my nation weighs heavily upon my heart. News of Andoran's growing influence disturbs me greatly, for I see what rabble rallies 'round their flag.
It appears my work in training up new Pathfinders must cease for a time, so I may take up the cause of Taldor more actively. The world must never forget: TALDOR FOREVER!!!
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It appears my work in training up new Pathfinders must cease for a time, so I may take up the cause of Taldor more actively. The world must never forget: TALDOR FOREVER!!!
I disagree, Milady. Andoran's popularity serves our cause well. Let the misfits, the nitwits, and the inept flock under their banner. Not only will Andoran make a fine target when we turn our enemies against them, but the presence of so many unintelligent thugs in their ranks will make them less effective than our smaller but stronger force.
(In other words, Andoran's overwhelming popularity means that they have a lot of 7-Int Fighters working for them. Which is good for us. All we have to do is refuse to assist their missions during the first month after a given module is released, and encourage others to do the same. Banding together for Taldan tables at conventions where modules premiere will also be an excellent strategy, one that's easier to do when there are fewer Taldan players present.)
-Gerard d'Apcher
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Andoran's popularity serves our cause well. Let the misfits, the nitwits, and the inept flock under their banner.
How dare you insult the residents of Andoran? It's one of the finest provinces in the Taldan Empire, second only to Taldor itself! (The provinces of Cheliax and Galt are tied for last place, naturally.)
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Andoran now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the old Taldan empire have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Taldan; we do not seek an empire. We are Andorans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of freedom and the universal cause of justice.
Rally 'round the flag my brothers! Through our combined talents we shall throw off the shackles of tyrrany and slavery; Pass the trials set forth by fate; Endure the attacks and sabotage our enemies inflict. In time, we shall free every nation, and the blaze of liberty shall be our gift to posterity!
(This skill monkey will be getting *every* PA, and leading a group of like minded this year towards another victory!
So sorry members of the also ran factions, but this one's locked up tighter than Fort Knox.)
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How many gamers in The Society really care how well the various Factions do?
The mechanics regarding what constitutes success for the factions so far seems to be pretty trivial as far as I can tell. Many of the missions seem to be a case of trivial mushroom management. "Get the McGuffin. Bring it back. You don't know why. We're not telling you why. You don't know if your success has any importance."
I, for one, would have a much greater sense of participation if the faction missions had a greater degree of importance. I would prefer to see there being more in the way of direct consequence between success and subsequent activities within the adventures.
As for the success of the various factions: I have characters in multiple factions. My characters may have some investment (but not necessarily a deep one in some cases), but I personally don't have that investment.
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Many of the missions seem to be a case of trivial mushroom management.
Yeah, I think this is where the cool idea of having Factions in Pathfinder organized play fails in practice -- cool idea in theory :: often lame-ass in play.
Scenarios are tiny. No problem there...
-But every person who wants to write one has to include not one but one plus six! PC missions. You can't just write a small module; you have to write a small module with 6 sidequests. And pretty soon ten! That's just dumb.
Of course the Faction missions are gonna be trivial and banal.
I love the Factions -- ten or twelve would be great.
I really don't like the Faction missions.
Scenarios are tiny. No problem there...
-But every person who wants to write one has to include not one but one plus six! PC missions. You can't just write a small module; you have to write a small module with 6 sidequests. And pretty soon ten! That's just dumb.
Six? Don't you mean ten? (Five factions, with two possible prestige points per faction.)
Whatever.
There's Andoran -- the fun one,
and Cheliax -- the cool one,
and some others that are meaningless nothings.
Taldor = Shaggy
Qadira = ScoobyOsirion = Velma
Cheliax = Daphne
Andoran = Fred
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W E Ray, what is this rage (seemingly) against the faction missions? It's just a mechanic used by PFS to add some flavor to the campaign. And, IMHO, a pretty cool one.
They are subtle (mostly) and not meant to be hugely immersive because that would distract players from the main goal of the scenario. There are already a lot of stories of how players, in going for the mission, derailed the main story.
I don't find it "dumb" that authors/developers will now need to write ten missions for each scenario. They are minor plot points that should be somehow related to the overall goal - something you can do on the way. If one can write a 16-20 page mod, I don't think the faction missions will be much of a problem.
Not to mention that with ten factions, we might see more variety in the kinds of missions assigned. And that is good for everyone.
If one can write a 16-20 page mod, I don't think the faction missions will be much of a problem.
Not to mention that with ten factions, we might see more variety in the kinds of missions assigned. And that is good for everyone.
I'm with Mr. Ray -- if the faction missions seemed kind of tacked on when there are "only" ten of them to squeeze in, I'm not sure why they'll be more interesting and varied when the author has to squeeze in 20(!) instead.
when the author has to squeeze in 20(!) instead.This assumes that there will be 2 missions for each faction. What if there's only 1 (with 1 point automatically given for successful completion of the scenario)?
What if the prestige system is scrapped completely? Or what if there are 3 prestige points per adventure? It's fun to speculate, but without any information to the contrary, I'm not going to guess about what other changes there might be.
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This assumes that there will be 2 missions for each faction. What if there's only 1 (with 1 point automatically given for successful completion of the scenario)?
That's a great idea.
1 point for completing the PF mission and 1 point for completing the difficult faction mission. This keep faction missions to a minimum, it would keep them interesting, and it would prevent mission bloat.
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I don't mind minor or banal faction missions. We are the work force, not the powers that be that determines the importance of the banal.
However, I do have one gripe (which I've voiced on at least two other threads). I hate dumpster dives. Why on earth would any self-respecting pathfinder go diving into every trash pile they find in the hopes that they find the dagger or ring or flag or whatever that their faction leader wanted? Those are the faction missions that feel "tacked on".
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Ray, what is this rage (seemingly)?
Sorry, mate -- there's no rage; if it comes across that way it is purely unintentional.
I just saw the Blog that said Andoran won (YAY US!) and there were gonna be some neet cookies for Andoran -- such as the new logo.
Personally, I don't think it's that good of an idea to do that -- but since I'm not really invested, one way or the other, in the Factions, I was curious about how many folks even care.
. . . . Now, yes my Society PC is in the Andoran Faction and I like the fluff behind the Cheliax Faction -- so in the spirit of competition I'll "poo pooh" the other Factions, but that's suppose to be taken with a grain of salt. Guess I wasn't very good at articulating the difference between my sincere curiosity and my jibes. (Still, what kind of person would actually want to join Qadira?!)
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I heard we were scraping the scenarios entirely and just going on a series of loosely-related faction missions, most of which involved gunslingers?
Yeah! That's what I heard, too.
For serious.
It was on Fox News, the place to go for the real story.
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I heard we were scraping the scenarios entirely and just going on a series of loosely-related faction missions, most of which involved gunslingers?Yeah! That's what I heard, too.
For serious.
It was on Fox News, the place to go for the real story.
** spoiler omitted **
Not gonna touch the media spin/perception discussion with a 10-foot pole.
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I wasn't sure if I should create a new thread or resurrect an old one... so I just picked one.
From my perspective factions, for all intents and purposes ceased to have any real meaning back in year of the demon or whatever, when they made it so that each scenarios only had one or two faction missions.
I HATED when the change was first made and they didn't give you a clue as to which faction would be represented. I missed out on a cool boon or three because I picked the wrong character to play in said scenario.
I dislike the way it is now because I dislike the 'faction spoiler' having any amount of influence on which character I play (it has rarely mattered because the boons are generally trivial anyway) but I sometimes attempt to play the 'correct' faction just because there might be a roleplaying opportunity that would be missed if i played a different faction.
Worse tho is that I dislike that, so often, there are 6 members of the same faction at the table now. Gone is the fun interaction/rivalry/challenge of a group with 6 different priorities....
I understand that the burden of including 10 different (not to mention relevant and interesting) missions is a huge burden on scenario authors but I miss the 'way it was' in a big way. If there are ever any thoughts about bringing back faction diversity at the tables, I vote an emphatic YES!
My first character is a Qadiran trade princess that impersonates a Cheliaxan (not terribly hard to do as a devil summoner that acts a lot like Zarta when there are Cheliaxans around) in order to learn (not allowed to interfere with success conditions) what Cheliax is planning.
Faction is hugely important during the creation of some of my characters and a minor afterthought "what would make the most sense for this character that is already fleshed out" in others. It just depends.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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As someone who really started playing PFS around the start of Season 6 and thus never gamed under the old faction system, I am relatively happy with the way the factions seem to be working now, and think even in the last year PFS has improved that aspect tremendously.
While having a 'faction spoiler' in the mission can guide character selection, in practice I haven't seen it skew tables too much. Typically we'll have 1 or 2 players from the faction tied to the mission sitting at the table (many of which can be random luck. I find many players aren't aware of a scenario's contents before sitting down). Plus, some scenarios really do beg for a certain faction's agents to participate. The recent Ancient's Anguish is a spectacular 7-11 scenario, but the important choices to be made regarding the Scarab Sages really should be best made by Sages themselves.
I also believe that the creation of the faction Goal Cards is a great move to give factions identity. It lets players bring factions into random missions more if they would like to without requiring it. And the different tasks asked of each Pathfinder to check the boxes helps to distinguish the ways in which each faction goes about its goals and the rewards such actions can bring.
One thing I do think could be very much improved on is getting every faction its own clear storyline or overall mission. Right now, some factions have a defined and compelling set of goals (the Scarab Sages first and foremost, but also the Grand Lodge dealing with the aftermath of [spoiler's][spoiler]). Some however, I feel are ill-defined and adrift under the newest faction merging. The Exchange seems mostly just there for our lodge, and while the Sovereign Court's goals are massive in scope, so far their actions boil down to simply namedropping with aristocrats. If every faction could get a clear story or scenario to really spark a new direction (like Destiny of the Sands or - hopefully - the upcoming Faithless and Forgotten Dark Archive trilogy)
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Ashe, are you familiar with Faction Journal Cards? I find that they do help with making the presence of factions known at the table again.
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Ashe, from my perspective, those early season faction missions were just a horrendous drain on the GM, the players, and the storyline, when they just weren't outright spoilers on the story itself.
The GM had to be aware of which faction could possibly fulfill faction mission X or Y in this room, while the players were constantly going, "Is it here?" instead of paying attention to the actual mission they were on.
To be honest, from the early days, I remember stupid goals someone was trying to fulfill, "Is there a tea set here?" instead of our actual mission. Or other faction missions which were, essentially, "Kill the BBEG.".
No, just no. Overall, those faction missions distracted too much from the game and actual Pathfinder Society mission we were there to do, rather than enhancing the gaming experience.
Also, for the early Season 5 scenarios, while the factions were not yet included in the blurbs, there was a section or post on the forums with the information included that was supposed to be given to the players, as well.
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If you had to resurrect a thread about this, you probably should have gone with something more recent than 4 1/2 years ago. This discussion has already been had several times since the change.
To sum up where we're at today:
Good moves all around, IMO.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well in defense of the threadomancer, at least she didn't make a new thread.
*ahem* I don't mind the 'faction' spoilers anyway When I prep a scenario I often go, "Now who should I apply this to?" Actually it's a nice perk for me, because I can play a scenario freely, knowing I can GM it on a 'correct' character and gain any boons later.
And thumbs up on the faction cards. While the sczar[/s] er, [i]Exchange has been woefully underused in the year of the serpent, all the cards have offered RP opportunities.
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I agree with kinevon. I found the faction missions to be an irritating burden. Occasionally they were cool and neat and potentially lead to some fun inter-party conflict that did not detract from the overall story. Much more often, because the rewards for the faction mission (which was often just "find the McGuffin") were way out of proportion to their interest in the story, people would overfocus on that which would detract from actually paying attention to the scenario. It was annoying as a player, and it was annoying as a GM. I was so happy to see them go away.
Given a choice between having faction missions available for everybody as they were before, and having factions completely eliminated and "you are all Pathfinders", I would definitely go with the latter.
I like the balance where we are now. The occasional faction mission within a scenario feels a more meaningful than it used to when there was a de rigeur, often boring, mission in every scenario. The fact that you can ignore your faction if you want to is very nice, and lets you focus on the story of the scenario. And it makes it easier for the GM to figure out how much prestige to hand out.
Sometimes, the new faction missions can lead to inter-party conflict. Without saying too much, when I played Overflow Archives, the two of us in the Dark Archives conspired to complete our mission when the other characters in the mission didn't want us to, on general principles (which made sense within the context of the story-- the principles weren't "I don't want you to complete your faction mission", but "this shouldn't be done"). But in my experience they're more fun than the crappy missions we had back in the old days.
Faction Journal Cards are nice. They can be treated as an afterthought, and give you a little roleplaying nudge without a penalty for not completing your on-the-side faction mission as huge as losing a prestige point.
The old way of doing it was terrible. One of the best decisions the campaign leadership ever did was getting rid of them.
(The very best decision that was made was when the rude-Venture-Captain style of briefing (which we used to get all the time in Seasons 0-2) was finally eliminated. This was when the briefing officer would say things like "I asked for a group of competent Pathfinders, instead I got you. Ah, well, I shall have to make do." That was so annoying, and I've had players unsurprisingly react negatively to it. I've taken to rewriting those sentences in briefings and making them more in the style of what we've seen in recent years.)