RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The campaign coordinator, Mike Brock, has been very clear in his stance that encounters are not to be modified in any way.
I can't comment too much on the "fudging" since different people mean different things with that term.
As for table size, remember that having 6-7 players means you adjust the APL up by 1, which might put them in a higher subtier to compensate for the extra power.
Starting in Season 4, encounters will be designed with 6 players in mind, so you shouldn't run into this issue anymore anyway.
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Alright, here's a discussion I've had a few times at conventions. I'm pretty much always running a table with 6+ players. The problem is that the amount of creatures on the table generally doesn't give enough "issue" to the PCs, so, sometimes, I increase the number of enemies (without changing the stats or rewards) on the field.
I've had mainly positive results from doing something like this, and it isn't always done (if it calls for only a single enemy, I don't double it), and I only increase the amount of enemies by maximum 170% (generally 150% of normal). It allows everyone to have a turn (especially if there is 7 players at the table, which is common).
People have said that I should just GM fudge more for bigger tables, but I have a policy that I only fudge if I have one of the following situations: I'm winning too much, I'm losing too much or there's a really annoying Min/Maxer that I want to cut down to size so that others can shine.
What do you think?
Please don't do this. We have no metric to make scenarios better if you adjust a scenario and we receive positive feedback on it. We hear the positive feedback, we think the scenarios are good how they are, and we don't adjust. However, if you run as written, with no adjustments, and it is a cakewalk, and then you leave feedback, we can reevaluate what was done and make adjustments to future scenarios.
I'm also concerned with the"mainly positive results" and not hearing it was "completely positive results." Were there a few negative experiences? If so, how did you resolve them?
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Campaign leadership has been pretty consistent in their stance that GMs are not to adjust scenarios in a mechanical way i.e., changing stats, number of bad guys, etc. (See Mike's post above.)
It can be tempting when the PCs are waltzing through the scenario, I'll admit, but it skews the organized part of organized play and can have unintended consequences, if not at your table then for the campaign as a whole.
Lately, I have been doing my best to plan and adjust so I am aiming for a maximum of 5 seats per table and then busting up to 6 only when I have no choice. For game days that I am organizing, 7 player tables should be as rare as unicorns, for just this reason.
It is still possible to have a fun play experience, even when the 7 PCs lay waste to everything in their path. When people complain that it was too easy because there were so many people at the table, that is the time to say, "You're right and that's why I was hoping you can help out by GMing a session or two..."
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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It can be tempting when the PCs are waltzing through the scenario, I'll admit, but it skews the organized part of organized play and can have unintended consequences, if not at your table then for the campaign as a whole.
Wow, it's so refreshing to hear someone else mention the idea of "it's about more than just your own table" that I could just kiss you!*
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It can be tempting when the PCs are waltzing through the scenario, I'll admit, but it skews the organized part of organized play and can have unintended consequences, if not at your table then for the campaign as a whole.Wow, it's so refreshing to hear someone else mention the idea of "it's about more than just your own table" that I could just kiss you!*
** spoiler omitted **
I feel like you should at least offer to buy me dinner first. :)
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(what follows is just a rant - feel free to ignore it)I have seen a player walk away from a table after a game where 2 PCs were killed (1/3 the party), one of them a Perm death (not enough resources to raise him), where there were more comsumables used than treasure gained, and within the hour complain to the Coordinator that the Judge/game was to easy, "a cake walk". Really.
I've seen a judge "adjust" an encounter 'cause "things were just to easy" and kill PCs. And then make it worse by trying to "back-it-out" with NPCs stepping in to "Fix" it.
I fear a judge that can say things like "...there's a really annoying Min/Maxer that I want to cut down to size..." and not have someone call him on it. Please don't make my game "more challanging" because the jerk beside me upset you. He wont learn the right lession and neither will I. And you wont enjoy it - even when there is no "fall out damage", killing the jerk is not as much fun as we like to think it is.
(end of rant -...
Not ignoring at all, because you are right. This is why the official stance is "No Changes". How much is too much? Or not enough?
If we run as written and the adventure is too easy or too killer, that feedback gets back to leadership and they make changes. If we make changes at the table, based on our own judgement about what is too easy or too hard or who is a jerk, we run the risk of alienating good players and we run the risk of needed adjustments not being made at the campaign level.
And nosig is way right about the jerk in the next chair not getting the message. They don't learn, even if their character dies a horrible death. In a weird way, we are giving jerk player exactly the attention they crave when we adjust the scenario to 'teach them a lesson'. It justifies the annoying character build, validates the play style and further annoys everyone else.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I feel like you should at least offer to buy me dinner first. :)It can be tempting when the PCs are waltzing through the scenario, I'll admit, but it skews the organized part of organized play and can have unintended consequences, if not at your table then for the campaign as a whole.Wow, it's so refreshing to hear someone else mention the idea of "it's about more than just your own table" that I could just kiss you!*
** spoiler omitted **
*collapse to the ground with stars circling head*
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Nice try, Nosig. >.>
Looks like you found a new "party member", Dan.She's not a new party member, we've been partners in crime spreading our gnomey awesomeness since March 2011.
wow ... has it really been over a year??
actually it's been awhile since there were any happenings ... I'm starting to feel the bleaching.. we must do something
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I tried the 5 player table approach as an experiment in some of the tables I ran last weekend, but 2 things happened:
1) Not enough GMs so tables were oversubscribed and its hard to turn folks away. So all but one ran with 6 anyway.
2) One table had a no show and the four players actively recruited more players as they were worried about facing a scenario with only 4 PCs... You can't win.
I have to say I find GMing much more enjoyable when there are only 5 players for whatever reason. Even in 3.5 hour slots.
It would be good if there was some top cover support for smaller tables.
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Man, you leave a thread for a few hours and then it gets all gnome-y. :)
ZomB - That is the tough part. I don't like to turn people away either and will usually expand to accommodate, but if you can get a backup GM or two in advance, it is possible to make it work. Of course, GMs can be hard to come by sometimes.
GMing for me is much more enjoyable with smaller tables, but I am surprised to hear that they were worried that they couldn't succeed with only 4PCs. It would kind of depend on the scenario and the PCs, but as the encounters are designed for four (until next season), it would seem feasible. Although if you are used to more, 4 could seem scant, I suppose.
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I've run PFS a fair amount and have GMd two APs. Very rarely will I change the number of monsters for a PFS combat, and I'll only do it when I've calculated the new encounter difficulty and verified that it doesn't make the combat Hard or Epic. If if moves the encounter from Easy to Average, and its clear that I've got a bunch of bored players, then I might do it. Average to Challenging I've only done once, and it was with my regular set of players whose PCs, tactics, strategy, and grasp of ruleset I'm very familiar with.
So, yeah, conclusion: don't do this*.
...unless you are a very experienced GM, know the players well, and aren't moving the CR of the encounter into Challenging, Hard, or Epic zones.
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Outside of PFS Sozin, I'd agree with you and tell you that you were right. In PFS though, I'd tell you, "Don't do this, no matter what, and if you feel that the combat does need adjusted go to the product discussion for the scenario/adventure and let Mark & Mike know. We can't fix it, if we don't know it's broken."
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@Sozin - I don't doubt your GMing chops for a minute, but your post raises another wrinkle regarding altering scenarios.
What *exactly* is a "very experienced" GM? What if the GM in question is only "mostly experienced"? Or...what if s/he is very experienced...for a 14 year old GM, does that change the equation?
I will wager that if you asked most GMs to rate themselves on their experience level and their ability to alter adventures judiciously, MOST who aren't running their first PFS adventure would consider themselves to be up to the task. If you then sampled the people who played at their tables, you would probably get a different picture.
AND, those that made alterations would make them all differently - some add more of bad guy A, while others more of bad guy B and still others just slapped an Advanced template onto some monsters. The changes themselves aren't necessarily bad or poorly thought out, but they are made according to personal tastes and beliefs about how the game should be played. The GM who is used to running for power gaming min/maxers is probably going to make different changes than the one who is used to flavorful, one trick pony roleplayers, even if both are making fair and balanced changes in their own mind.
In my home games, I make changes on the fly all the time. I am currently running Kingmaker (about to start book 6, yay!) and I regularly throw in changes. If I make a bad call its on me, but I know my players, how they think and what their characters can do.
One thing is for sure, I don't care in the slightest if our Kingmaker experience is the same as someone else's group running through the same AP. But when I'm running PFS, my expectation is that everyone at my table who has a chronicle for a particular scenario faced the same obstacles and that their experiences were made different by how their parties overcame them, not by GM editing, even when it was made with the best of intentions.
So...what the esteemed Mr. Luckett said only with way more words. :P
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What *exactly* is a "very experienced" GM?
Hard to say. If I were forced to quantify, I'd say a very experienced GM is one that has done some combination of the following:
- GM'd more than three complete adventure path.
- GM'd more than 75 PFS scenarios.
- GM'd more than two editions of "D&D".
- Has logged more than 5,000 hours of focused practice in GM'ing and playing.
- Regularly studies the art of GM'ing (gnomestew, kobold quarterly, Game Mastery guide, etc)
If I had a guy like that GM'ing a Society scenario for me, I'd be pretty comfortable with him adding monsters, removing monsters, adding templates, adding class levels, whatever, to a society scenario. For me the number one rule for all Pathfinder play - home, PFS, or otherwise - is that the table is having as much fun as as possible. I believe this rule supersedes PFS consistency. Experienced GM's should be allowed to bend a scenario a little to their will to meet this goal.
Given that their is no such thing as a GM driver's license, or certification, I'm guessing 90% of the GMs you see running PFS should stick exactly to the scenario as written for all the excellent reasons both of you bring up above. But I'm not in that 90%, and frankly I'm not going to sacrifice the fun of my table for the purpose of canonical consistency.
I know this flies in the face of all the good points you guys are making above, but, that's my firm belief and I'm stickin' to it.
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I know this flies in the face of all the good points you guys are making above, but, that's my firm belief and I'm stickin' to it.
I am personally not going to tell you how to run your PFS game at Your tables, I will just point out that it is against Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator Michael Brock wishes..
Please don't do this. We have no metric to make scenarios better if you adjust a scenario and we receive positive feedback on it. We hear the positive feedback, we think the scenarios are good how they are, and we don't adjust. However, if you run as written, with no adjustments, and it is a cakewalk, and then you leave feedback, we can reevaluate what was done and make adjustments to future scenarios.
I'm also concerned with the"mainly positive results" and not hearing it was "completely positive results." Were there a few negative experiences? If so, how did you resolve them?
There are a few other posts like that through the boards.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So first you're going to say that in your own estimation you're a better GM than 90% of us and that you deserve special treatment, and then say that anyone who disagrees with that stance is stupid (doesn't use "real thought")?
Sorry, but at this point I'm not very inclined to trust your judgment.
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there are always players (and I lump Judges in there with the rest of the people at the table) who feel that the rules do not apply to them. Or that all the rules do not apply to them. or that all the rules don't apply all the time.
The Take 10 rule at my tables does not apply to you nosig...sorry ;)
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- GM'd more than three complete adventure path.
- GM'd more than 75 PFS scenarios.
- GM'd more than two editions of "D&D".
- Has logged more than 5,000 hours of focused practice in GM'ing and playing.
- Regularly studies the art of GM'ing (gnomestew, kobold quarterly, Game Mastery guide, etc)
I have only GMed one AP from start to finish. It was Legacy of Fire. However, it lasted three years because of all the side quests. I did GM halfway through Rise of the Runelords but the group fell apart after a year due to real life issues. Does this mean I don't qualify as a very experienced GM? Granted, we played bi-weekly, but we also never rushed through an AP just to say we finished it because my players love to role play. We spent two game sessions just role playing Rayhan's dinner party and the meeting with all the NPCs in the LoF.
I have GMed more than 100 PFS scenarios, and I've GMed and played since 1977. However, I have no idea how close it comes to 5000 hours. But,I do have more than 35 years experience with various game systems, inluding every iteration of D&D.
I also don't "regularly", as in on a weekly basis, study the art of GMing, though I have read all of what you listed above.
So, since I haven't met all of your listed requirements, does that mean I'm not able to adjudicate changes on the fly successfully? I receive lots of compliments (before and after I received a purple golem icon beside my name) from my players about my GMing style, and even had a waiting list of 12 players interested in joining one of my home campaigns in Georgia.
I think you have to be careful when you create a checklist to quantify which GMs can make changes and which can't. Someone who would qualify otherwise may miss one bullet point, though they are very capable of making an interesting game for players seated at their table.
Are you going to make changes at your PFS table regardless of what I request? Probably. I am not going to show up and take your books away. But, if you alter every PFS scenario to give your players a better experience, and they report it was an awesome game, all we see here at Paizo is the players had a great time, have reported such, and so the scenario must be perfectly balanced and we do not need to make changes. You have to remember, the Society is about the experience at a worldwide, campaign level, not just your individual tables. Keep in mind,if you are changing the experience just for your players, you are giving them a great experience but you are hurting the Society overall because we have no metric to know what was good, bad or indifferent. We get good feedback from players, then we keep things the same. We receive poor feedback from players, then we can make changes so all GMs across the globe will have a better scenario in hand.
I can't make you not change scenarios when you GM. I'm not even going to try to stop you. But, it just means productive changes come at a slower rate to overall Society play, because we have to wade through what experiences were altered and what were run as written.
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So first you're going to say that in your own estimation you're a better GM than 90% of us and that you deserve special treatment, and then say that anyone who disagrees with that stance is stupid (doesn't use "real thought")?
Sorry, but at this point I'm not very inclined to trust your judgment.
Jiggy,
You are clearly only in the 89th percentile as a player.
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So first you're going to say that in your own estimation you're a better GM than 90% of us and that you deserve special treatment, and then say that anyone who disagrees with that stance is stupid (doesn't use "real thought")?
Sorry, but at this point I'm not very inclined to trust your judgment.
Jiggy,
You are clearly only in the 89th percentile as a player.
Hrmm ... I must be as well lol
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So first you're going to say that in your own estimation you're a better GM than 90% of us and that you deserve special treatment, and then say that anyone who disagrees with that stance is stupid (doesn't use "real thought")?
Sorry, but at this point I'm not very inclined to trust your judgment.
Jiggy,
You are clearly only in the 89th percentile as a player.
...for now. ;)
Don't worry, by fall I'll have breached the 90th (or better), and I'll bring my gestalt druid/synthesist who I decided also has full BAB and d10 HD, since I'll be capable of playing him responsibly, therefore absolving me of any need to follow the rules.
Rules are for the bottom 90%, after all.
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So first you're going to say that in your own estimation you're a better GM than 90% of us and that you deserve special treatment, and then say that anyone who disagrees with that stance is stupid (doesn't use "real thought")?
Sorry, but at this point I'm not very inclined to trust your judgment.
Jiggy,
You are clearly only in the 89th percentile as a player.
...for now. ;)
Don't worry, by fall I'll have breached the 90th (or better), and I'll bring my gestalt druid/synthesist who I decided also has full BAB and d10 HD, since I'll be capable of playing him responsibly, therefore absolving me of any need to follow the rules.
Rules are for the bottom 90%, after all.
ooOOOOoooo I can only dream of being like you!!! I'll never crack the top 90% ;)