RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
A level 6 is too low, so all 4 players who came to the convention get turned away? Why? What does benefit does this serve?
Not at all. A Level 6 PC is too low for that scenario. So that player should either (a) play in a scenario for which he's the right level, or (b) use an appropriately leveled iconic. Everyone gets to play. That's the point of having the iconics.
(If the player chooses to walk rather than play a scenario with an iconic, that's not the fault of the PFS. What if the same player had the same attitude, but had a 3rd-Level character instead? Are you arguing that Josh shouldn't draw a line, or that the line should be elsewhere than the 6th / 7th-Level boundary?)
A level 6 is too low, so all 4 players who came to the convention get turned away? Why? What does benefit does this serve?Not at all. A Level 6 PC is too low for that scenario. So that player should either (a) play in a scenario for which he's the right level, or (b) use an appropriately leveled iconic. Everyone gets to play. That's the point of having the iconics.
(If the player chooses to walk rather than play a scenario with an iconic, that's not the fault of the PFS. What if the same player had the same attitude, but had a 3rd-Level character instead? Are you arguing that Josh shouldn't draw a line, or that the line should be elsewhere than the 6th / 7th-Level boundary?)
What I'm arguing is there needs to be a window above/below the tier. Just one level either way would be fine. I have -yet- to hear a compelling argument why tier-to-level needs to be strictly adhered to other than "that's the rules."
...Especially, when you consider that a character who falls -within a tier range- can --easily-- be 3 levels out of tier, yet that is perfectly acceptable and enforced, in certain situations. But the guy one level above or below tier is barred?
I've been in multiple living campaigns and if you go to a con you 'may' find someone willing to run an alternate mod after hours. But it rarely, if ever, happens during scheduled slots. You have the problem, again, of which players have played which mods. With people coming from all over the country it makes coordination difficult, at best.
IMO: All players are within 1 level + or - of the tier should be able to play that tier as long as the table -itself- still qualifies for that tier.
|
|
I would point out that as a judge at the described table I would ask the 5 and 4 to strongly consider starting a second character or find a different mod that slot. If they did not and forced most of the table to play way up then I would let them have it. The low level guys would get a chance to flee because they didn't cause this. The high level guys would likely eat the raise dead costs and also not get much in the way of the gold for the mod unless they got really lucky. If it happened soon enough I might even allow the rest of the players to continue the mod at the lower tier. The goal is to get new people into the game after all.
Wow. This is probably the most worrisome statement I have ever come across in all my years, er, decades of gaming.
Point 1: I acknowledge and can even understand your goal. It is an admirable goal to have. I have a very different goal in mind... My personal goal is to try to have fun and encourage others to have fun. I acknowledge my goal may be different than every other player's, judge's, GM's, staff member's, and/or convention goer's goal or goals. Maybe not. My point is that we are all individuals and may not have the same goals. I hope you can acknowledge and understand this.
Point 2: I acknowledge and understand that in a game with such different character levels, the high levels must pull their weight. This can be done successfully in a variety of ways from being the agro stick, using more expendables, or swapping damaging abilities for more support abilities than normal (or vice versa). This does not mean the gm should neverwinter their characters with the purpose of killing them just because of a difference in real life personal gaming goal philosophies... I don't care what justification is used. If such a thing happened, it may very well be the last time I played that game or at the very least that person. I hope you can understand why I say this.
Good attempt to start a flame war there with the Neverwinter comment. Of course my goal is to have everybody have fun. What to do when someone is wilfully ruining someone else's fun? Forcing a table with 3 level 1 characters to play up to 4-5 is rude gaming. Giving those same level 1's many of whom may be brand new to this a choice between sitting and watching some other guy play or getting slaughtered is not a good choice. To clarify as I left that vague, I would not add anything to the mod with the express intent of killing PCs.I would not change the mod. I would just chose my targets based off of who caused the problem in the first place. If they were powerful characters and played well they would have to work hard to survive. If they didn't play well then it is like I said in my original text. And yes I would drop to a lower tier if the higher level guy(s) dropped out of the mix. This is so that as many people as possible have fun.
Like it or not your solution would likely have 3 or 4 players walk away from the table not having fun. They would not have been the cause of it. They most likely would not have said so at the table.A personal experience. I one time had a near TPK in LG that caused me to lose a character at second level due to a 5th level guy showing up as the 6th player. It moved our APL from 2 to 4. Then the 5th level guy played very poorly, did not have a magic weapon to bypass the DR that was added at that tier, nor did he play with any mind to tactics in general. He ruined 5 other peoples fun that day. 4 of us died, 5 including him. The level one guy that ran away from the combat was the only survivor. Our judge was nice enough to let us be recovered to get a raise dead (he felt bad). 5250 out of pocket at 2nd level was no fun at all and put that character way behind the gold curve and thus had a much tougher time in the next 8 or so mods. All that it would have taken to fix this was for one very stubborn guy to make a second character. I'll push that option strongly whenever I see that situation again. If you are playing enough to have a 5th level character you are playing enough to have 2 characters.
I also had the experience of playing while a character of 7 levels higher than the rest of us soloed while the rest of us watched the action the entire mod. He was a very capable player. Thankfully the tight banding of the tiers will not let things get that out of hand but that was also not fun and not worth the slot fee for sure.
If you are the type who would bring a much higher level character to a tier 1-2 table, forcing that table up to tier 4-5, be unwilling to make up a second lower level character even after being directly asked to do so, and feel slighted by anything I did afterwords I would be comfortable with your decision to not game with me again.
|
Generally speaking people who bring higher level characters to a scenario are very much frowned upon. There was this one incident where one stubborn player wanted to bring his 8th-level wizard to a team full of 2nd and 3rd level characters.
Normally the DM would have completely rejected this stubborn plea, but it was the player who had requested the scenario to be played. To his unfortune there were no other players with high enough levels. Still I consider it to be very poor sportsmanship to stubbornly bring one's highest level guy to the field.
|
Wow - this was a long dead thread.
Sub-Tier 6-7 should be tougher as subtier 5-6. Monsters and enemies get scaled between the sub-tiers.
The only difference is - in a tier 3-7 you can either have subtier 3-4 or 6-7 and in 5-9 you have either 5-6 or 8-9. It depends on the Convention how they ensure you are in the right sub-tier.
I would guess more tables in tier 3-7 will be subtier 3-4 then 6-7 and more in tier 5-9 will be 5-6 then 8-9.
Hope this helps