|
I find that I am about out of PFS games to play at low and mid levels (and not a lot of chances to play high). I play at cons 3 or 4 times a year. And I play in one home group and run another. The person that runs the home group I play in is in the same boat. We have maybe 3 or 4 games left we can run for each other. That includes sanctioned mods. Any advise?
I find myself questioning the replay rules. If I can run a mod and then play it, what is wrong with running it with two different characters again? And if running it with two or more characters is bad, then why is it ok to do so at low levels?
|
PFS only supports long time approx biweekly games. If you game more often then you will run into this issue and there is no solution - only some strategies to soften it:
1) GM - this is unlimited - I see you are already doing this
2) Play modules - again - you seem to do this already
3) Try to get more local players up to higher level to open up the high tier scenarios - this can be a long and difficult (impossible) job depending on other players available
4) If you go to CONs - only play high tier and reserve the low tier for home
5) Play an AP - off course this can jeopardise 3) as you need a group of dedicated players
6) Just let the group play a few evenings without you
7) invite guest players from farther away for high tier play
You are not alone. Locally here I have 3 players (the second GM, my wife, myself) who have been the always available players and the only players going to CONs. For tier 1-5 they have to wait now for new scenarios.
We are slowly getting some players up to higher tier - but this can be a long journey if you have constantly players dropping out and some starting new characters before reaching high tier.
But we are getting there.
Get some sun? Write your own?
|
|
I find myself questioning the replay rules. If I can run a mod and then play it, what is wrong with running it with two different characters again? And if running it with two or more characters is bad, then why is it ok to do so at low levels?
It is only ok at level 1, not low levels. And that is to allow new players the chance to get started alongside experienced players who may have already played all the low level adventures.
The issue you have is not that PFS says you can't re-play adventures. Since as long as it is ok with your GM you may replay as much as you want. You just can't take credit for an adventure as a player (or GM) more than once (each).
The reason for this is the reduced Risk-to-Reward ratio. Once you have played an adventure, the next time through you know what to expect. Yet the rewards remain the same, which is not fair to all the first time players.
One can ask, "But if I GM the adventure before I play it, won't the first time I play it have less risk?" And the answer is that this is part of the benefit for GMing the adventure.
"OK, so what's to stop me from buying the adventure and reading it before I play it?" A: Nothing. If you enjoy doing that and you can keep from spoiling the adventure for other players, have fun.
All I can suggest for when you "hit the wall" is to organize games and run them for less experienced players.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Other ideas: Adventure Paths, Modules, Mouse Gaurd, Way of the Wicked, Slumbering Tsar, Volunteer at the soup kitchen, take a walk, Diablo III, Wash the car, Mow the lawn, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Teach new players how to play, take a shower, Conan, Serenity, Get a job, Savage Worlds, or Skyrim. Naturally I jest about some of those ideas.
You are one of a very small group of folks who game more than the PFS system can keep up with. You are the 1%. We in the 99% envy you, but some of the other game options mentioned above may be the best call for you. Most of us can barely keep up with the current scenario and module choices. Good luck my gaming brother!
|
|
My advice, pick up GM'ing. Start at a group and run your favorite scenario's and share the experience of PFS with others. Or you can try to co-ordinate a high level group. There some scenario's that I love and will be a fall back scenario to run and GM. I find some scenarios the more I run them the more I like them.
I have don't know about hiting the wall. I can see a chance but a couple month break could free up some gmaes. An AP is a good choice and the more effort you invest the better it can be.
Good luck good gaming.
|
I find that I am about out of PFS games to play at low and mid levels (and not a lot of chances to play high). I play at cons 3 or 4 times a year. And I play in one home group and run another. The person that runs the home group I play in is in the same boat. We have maybe 3 or 4 games left we can run for each other. That includes sanctioned mods. Any advise?
I find myself questioning the replay rules. If I can run a mod and then play it, what is wrong with running it with two different characters again? And if running it with two or more characters is bad, then why is it ok to do so at low levels?
Some scenarios, like First Steps and We Be Goblins, are supposed to be introductory. You can run them over and over for new groups as the situation may arise. For most other ones, the general idea may be that, once you've played through it and run it to read the behind-the-scenes stuff, that's all you can get out of it.
Also, to give you a suggestion, you could try to make up your own adventure, or even your own setting! Though if you want to stay at PFS consistently, the generally best idea is to GM scenarios you've already played, add all the credit to a new character, and start the higher-level ones with an idea or build that only starts working at those levels.
|
There are many in our group that are going through this as well. Luckily, our group has been growing pretty rapidly here lately so we can allow a larger assortment tier levels to play.
My suggestions:
1. Have the players start to GM. If you already GMing, continue to GM until you come across a scenario you can play. If they are not willing to GM and wait for new stuff to come out then, they really have no room to complain. I've always felt that GMing makes you a better player and playing makes you a better GM anyways.
2. Don't set as many people at a table. If you consistently have seven players and a GM, that means you can easily set 2 tables with 3 players each and a pregen. Assuming, that those who have played all of the low tiers do have characters that can play in the 5-9 and 7-11. This should allow for everyone to play.
3. Thod already mentioned it above. If those players play at cons, encourage them to play high tier scenarios there. Allowing them to be able to save the low level stuff for at home.
4. Play some high tier scenarios. Those who don't have characters can play pregens. I know that this is harmful to those with low character levels, but you can either have a scenario where everyone can play or only some people can play. There is really no good answer to this one. Someone is going to be upset.
5. It has been mentioned many times above, but play an Adventure Path. We are currently playing "Rise of the Runelords". It is a pretty darn good AP. It is set in Varisia. It could help you get a feel a Varisia, before you start to play season 4 (It is based in Varisia as well).
Hopefully some of these suggestions are helpful.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It seems you have enough players that both you and the other GM are running groups. That's 6 other players, at least, as you do not mention any of them having the issue you're having. Are none of these other players at the Tier 5-9 level, yet? That seems odd.
If they aren't, then the two of you should focus on getting them there. This, obviously, opens up a lot of adventures for you. Then, six adventures later, you have a wealth of options in the 7-11 range.
But, as someone else mentioned, replay rules being altered for the tiny percentage of people who play more often than twice per month should not be something that happens. Other systems have suffered greatly from allowing replay, driving out more players than they made happy. If you look around on these boards, you will see this debate come up roughly every six months during the last couple years. The arguments and suggestions in those threads are still valid. I recommend you read them.
|
|
Some good advise contained in these recommendations. Thanks. I am going to recommend the home game I play in ether stick to the sanctioned mods or move to an Adventure Path. And I will look into writing some reviews. :)
I may also offer to re-play some higher level tables for no credit and no chronicle to help get some of our local players to higher level. Is this officially acceptable?
I was never a big fan of 4th edition and LFR, although I played for about 2 years. One thing I did like was their liberal replay rules. I do not think it hurt the campaign to allow replay at all levels. I do not buy the idea that you can gain more insight from playing a mod than DMing it, and would argue that if we allow someone who has run a mod to later play it then it follows that we should allow replay of mods with different characters (maybe even require different factions each time).
Maybe this rule should be rethought. Do we want our most active players moving away from PFS because they have played everything we offer? Or do we want to re-examine this rule that, IMHO does not make a lot of sense.
|
|
It seems you have enough players that both you and the other GM are running groups. That's 6 other players, at least, as you do not mention any of them having the issue you're having. Are none of these other players at the Tier 5-9 level, yet? That seems odd.
If they aren't, then the two of you should focus on getting them there. This, obviously, opens up a lot of adventures for you. Then, six adventures later, you have a wealth of options in the 7-11 range.
But, as someone else mentioned, replay rules being altered for the tiny percentage of people who play more often than twice per month should not be something that happens. Other systems have suffered greatly from allowing replay, driving out more players than they made happy. If you look around on these boards, you will see this debate come up roughly every six months during the last couple years. The arguments and suggestions in those threads are still valid. I recommend you read them.
I was posting the same time as Drogon and so missed considering his thoughts in my response.
I now have 8 PFS characters ranging from 1 to 11. I have played pretty much everything below the 7-11 level. I have a number of friends that I see at cons that are in the same position, and have heard on this forum of a number of other that are as well. So I do disagree that its a tiny percentage of players with this problem. And regardless of the actual percentage, we are the players playing the most and actively promoting both Pathfinder and PFS. And I do not see how other systems have greatly suffered. If I believed this was the case then I would side with you. I was active in LG and LRF and did not see any suffering from this.
It is possible that I just missed this I guess. But the reality is that anyone can get mods in advance and read them if they want. And anyone can run a mod before playing it. As long as these two facts are true I believe that we should allow replay and that doing so is better for the campaign than not.
|
|
I play alot. I GM some. But what helps keep me from outstripping the published PFS adventures is to play in a weekly game where we play an adventure path. The plots are deeper, you get to develop the relationships between the characters and you can work your character up to 14ish level. Although its not perfect, even if your group changes some you can swap characters in and out of the adventure. Your GM will just need to keep everybody at an equal level and to do a recap of the adventure at the beginning of each session. I think that sometimes we work too hard at trying to fit our fun inside the structure. Remember, its only a game.
|
|
And just to play devil's advocate - Not allowing folks to replay stuff means that there's openings for other people to play. If re-play was allowed, then our local game store would be dominated by the same group of players every month.
Or, just to be a contrarion, since this is a home game - who cares what the actual rules are? Go ahead and replay, do what you want. Yeah, your character isn't legal but it's a home game so who cares.
Or, just to be a smartalek, you can do what most people seem to do - cheat. Every online game I've joined the other players seem to have a collection of 10 characters at nearly every level, something that would seem mathematically impossible.
|
|
Every online game I've joined the other players seem to have a collection of 10 characters at nearly every level, something that would seem mathematically impossible.
Offensive, Todd, offensive.
I have 13 PFS characters registered, 12 with at least one chronicle, although most of them have only 1 chronicle.
-1: 12th level, including a mix of played chronicles, some GMed chronicles, and a GMed module. And some from play online.
-2: 8th level, inclduiding most of my GM chronicles, and some play chronicles, including several from online.
-3: 4th level, some GM chronicles, some play chronicles, hasn't been played for a while, local play has gone back to intro level, and many judges seem to dislike Gunslingers...
-4: 1st level, 1 GM credit
-5: 1st level, 1 GM, 1 played credit, IIRC
-6: 1st level, 1 play credit
-7: 1st level, 1 GM credit
-8: 4th level, some Gm, some played, including a grandfathered module online.
-9: 1st level, 1 play credit
-10: 1st level, no credits
-11: 2nd level, 3 play credits, anyhow they are all the First Steps scenarios.
-12: 2nd level, 2 play credits, 1 GM credit, anyhow they are all the First Steps scenarios.
-13: 2nd level, all play credits, mainly First Steps.
Gives me 13 PCs, able to cover all tiers and most sub-tiers, looking for Eyes of the Ten.
|
|
Well let's see, I have played a number of scenario's again for no credit. Mainly if a table needs players. I can't really see a solution for replay credit changing to help anything. Player character plays X and replay's X to gain credit for another character.
I think the solution is to have a high level play slot. Say 7-11, the current rules regarding play with pregens helps this style slot.
High level play should be a slot if you have the players, 5-9 or 7-11 scheduale it talk with a co-ordinator volunteer to GM. "Eat" a scenario if you have to.
You have to have a strong base for this to happen, I would set up a series an start small. Run echoes of the Everwar or Hersey of man series to start it out.
I am not sure the logistics of your area, at some point if this is a problem with 3-4 players, someone will have to take the bull by the horns. I expect this would lead to allot of interest in high level content.
As a GM high level content takes a bit more prep work than a 1-2 sceanriio. So I would advise of doing a slow and steady process, or work with an additional GM to plan a sceduale.
I also have 9 characters half of which are above level 7, since I routinely GM high level content. None are past 11, and I haven't done the eyes series.
|
|
Every online game I've joined the other players seem to have a collection of 10 characters at nearly every level, something that would seem mathematically impossible.Offensive, Todd, offensive.
I have 13 PFS characters registered, 12 with at least one chronicle, although most of them have only 1 chronicle.
I think he means 10 PCs at each subtier. You clearly have most PCs at subtier 1-2 and one at each other subtier. Maybe he's exagerrating a bit too. /shrug