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Michael Brock, being prescient to the question I intended to find and ask him this morning (would you be alright with a thread dedicated to discussing the Convocation/how it went?,) requested some feedback on the Grand Convocation in the PFS Bloggery Thread.
That said, I think it's worth stating a few ideals/ground rules for such a conversation (in addition to the standards of the forum at large):
1) Be clear about how issues you encountered impacted you.
I know some people weren't happy with some of the bumps in the Convocation. I certainly got frustrated at the start. But saying "x sucked" isn't helpful. Instead, "x sucked because it created y inconvenience/problem which interferes with z and/or having fun". This gives context to why the particular item of note bothered you.
2) For every issue/problem, make your criticism constructive/solution focused.
Suggest a different way PFS may have done things to avoid the issue(s) you describe. A different means of organizing, of mustering players, of structuring a given encounter/quest/event, etc. If you're not sure how it could have been done differently, that's OK! Solicit feedback from others in the thread.
3) Point out what you liked/went well!
With any event this new in format and on this scale, it helps to know what was enjoyable and what went well/right. This helps future writers/coordinators know what they should keep and do the same. It's also a good place to give kudos to the volunteers/VCs/VLs/Paizo Staff whose individual efforts helped make the Grand Convocation a success.
4) Spoilers
This event is still going to occur at PaizoCon UK/Europe. Please, please, please be wary of spoilers. Use the tags when necessary. If you are going to be playing at said convention, it may be best to not read this thread at all!
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What I Liked
-Fully costumed cast of NPCs (Faction Leaders, Venture Captains/Pathfinder Masters) were awesome.
It was a blast interacting with them socially between events/tables, inquiring about the small vignette interactions, and getting more insight into the politics brewing behind the next season. Special props to the Paracountess for hitting the perfect mix of double innuendo and her signature lack of boundaries. And to the eligible Lady Blackros for playing the part of a spoiled noble brat so well! This really helped it feel like a gathering of Pathfinders to me because of this component vs. a mass of special tables at an interactive.
-The interaction based mini-events (Boasting Contest, Channel Your God, Harrow Reading, Etc.).
My previous experience with free table-float interactive events (in other campaigns) often just meant lots of MetaOrgs and special in game item vendors tabling in a room. Your character or role playing them never came through; it did here. And the events were varied enough that most every concept got a chance to shine.
-Table Arrangement during the finale based on tier for purposes of Channel/Bardic Performance/Etc. overlap was very well done. It became clear to me that a lot of thought was put into this arrangement to help maintain the feel of a mass battle with objectives being different based on tier.
-The Convocation Finale GMs Were Awesome. They sat the table, laid out clear instructions, and kept things moving. These guys knew their stuff inside and out and were ready to go. I was very impressed.
What I Didn't Like/Wished Was Different
-Free Float Table Organization/Flow was confusing to the point of frustration.
I knew what to expect in terms of format (Social Area, Side Tables/Quests, Finale) based on the the Blog. When my group arrived and was processed through, we hit a wall of people in the hallway without any instruction on where to proceed next. It took us awhile to realize it was the social area. It was too loud, too crowded, and too confusing to even begin interacting/role-playing as intended. Being a 10-11 group, we all had a number of books/laptops to lug around for all of our Additional Resources and became frustrated at being unable to go inside, go to an event table, and put our bags down.
This got better over time as staff shifted the social interaction space inside to give players waiting for tables something to do. But our group still waited two hours for a Quest table, as we could only play at the 7-11 one and neither table was keeping to any sort of time limit. We had to rush through the 7-11 encounter in >45 minutes, with regular interruptions for social vignettes, which made it less than enjoyable and didn't give us much time to soak in the plot component
A couple suggestions for future events with this format:
--Combine the mini-game tables and social areas. Place them together in their own room, ideally the main room/largets. Make this the "social lounge" area described in the blog posts.
--Place the sidequest encounters/combats in a separate, but adjacent/nearby area, from the social/mini-game tables to avoid interruptions from the social vignettes. Enforce a time limit that allows at least two groups to rotate through each table, and queue groups up to specific time slots as they go through the processing table. Call in said groups from the social/mini-game area at their time slot. Yes, sidequest encounter tables would lose the social vignettes...but these slowed down said tables a great deal. And really, from a role-play perspective, none of these groups were "present" at the Convocation while playing them. It would encourage in character discussion between groups/NPCs (AKA Gossip!) to see what was missed.
--The social area, regardless of where it is, needs to be a large open space. This way, everyone can see the vignettes at all points and can hear them as well. The last one pre-finale couldn't be heard or seen by most of us and was the most pertinent to the convocation's finale plot as I understood it second-hand. I applaud Mike Brock for quickly realizing the hallway wasn't working and moving the social component into the main room as quickly as he did, avoiding the above discussed issue with most of the earlier vignettes.
-More Structure/Limits to the Silent Auction
First, a larger range of power levels/costs to the items. They all saw a surprisingly small amount of bidding (save a particular ioun stone), and I can't help but wonder if it was because non-high level characters just didn't have the GP/Prestige to spare. I also don't think many people realized the auction was there until the end of the free float portion of the convocation.
Second, on a more personal note (as I was outbid), a limit on how many items/auctions a single person can win would be nice. It sounded like one person snatched up a significant portion of the items, most likely via a retired 12+ character with a lot of gold to spare. Given how few of these items there are an that only two of each will ever exist, it is a bit unbalanced that one Player/PC will hold so many of them. The auction otherwise really becomes dominated like this by PCs who retired, have played modules pre-12+ advancement, and are sitting on large sums of GP. But again, a personal bias exists as I lost an auction I had walked out the room when time was called thinking I'd won. So take that comment with a grain of salt.
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From my other post:
- It was an amazing success. In terms of reaching a near impossible audacious goal: it succeeded. It blended in an amazing array of PFS community members, Paizo staff, & outside actors into a very fun, creative and satisfying event.
- There are things that could have been done better, but those are mechanical/execution issues and those don't matter much to me as they will always happen in any large-scale event.
- The hordes of volunteer writer, actors, GMs and whomever else deserve infinite praise and credit for the event. I can't thank them all, but would love to. Thank you.
- I hope that Specials like this become more common within PFS play at conventions or where they can be run. Giving members of the PFS community chances to act, shine, and contribute is infinitely important to growing the enthusiasm for PFS. (For instance, I won't ever forget the joy I had watching Shivok rock the Oracle...it's amazing because I know him and felt all the passion and energy he was putting into his role. And Cherry as Lady Blackros? Amazing.)
- It's clear from how many 'regular' PFS players who showed up in costume that we have a good portion of our PFS play base who gets really excited for events like this and responded in kind and helped build the enthusiasm. I need to get a picture of the Bloat Mage up to better illustrate this and some of the other costumes.
And more:
- +1 to the points made by BDK86, both good and bad.
- The interruptions by the social vignettes were frustrating given our time pressures. In a perfect world, I'd have time to give full attention to both, but since we knew we had limited time to complete everything, the number of them was intrusive. However, since I loved all the passion and drama those brought, I would definitely keep them...but have fewer or find another solution.
- It was often hard to hear the actors, both inside and out. Some have suggested having people mic'd, but I don't know that's realistic or feasible. Or maybe it's just something we'll have to deal with.
- Getting started and knowing what to do took a bit of time. Initially, I didn't know understand the format (quests, mini-quests) and it didn't occur to me to actually *read* my card (my bad! but who has time for such with all the chaos around?!). My suggestions: 1)Hand out the instruction cards to people in line so that they have time to read or 2) Have one of the loud mouthed actors going up and down the line explaining things to people.
- Our GM for the final round (VC Scott Young) was both prepared and ready to move quickly, something I really appreciated. I see that BDK86's GM, above, was the same way. If your GMs were told in advance to play quick and efficient and had ample time to prep for that, it was a good move. If it was accidental, then even more props to VC Young. He's good (for a Canadian :) ).
- In a perfect world with perfect space, things like the Silent Auction would have been set up in the lobby/waiting area so players could take their time reading and thinking about things between scenes/times in the room.
- I found myself really wishing I knew who, in-character, the actors were supposed to be. Yes, I did end up asking them in-character, but it was somewhat frustrating that some of the yahoos that I should I have known immediately (like VC CJ's DDrenge...duh :( ), I couldn't place immediately due to the chaos. I know a nametag would have been breaking the verisimilitude, but I thought I'd mention it. Of course, some were wearing nametags which was equally awkward at times. I found myself looking at the young hellknight's...uh...outfit for a nametag which was near her waist. Really, all I wanted was to know what character she was.
- It seemed to me that the suitors were actively seeking out patrons of their factions. If they weren't, then I got lucky to be approached by my faction's suitor.
- The quest GMs really needed to limit their run time to 45 minutes. I don't know how much time they had to prep, but some ran slowly. Also, I might not include 10+ subtier encounters at all (or tailor high tier encounters to run quickly).
I wasn't privy to the behind the scenes stuff and I'm sure there were some internal hiccups that were deftly handled by staff, from the outside, I want so say again:
Congrats on successfully implementing an audacious and ambitious Grand Convocation that combined all aspects of the PFS universe: players, authors, VOs, & Paizo Staff into an event that will echo throughout the Society for years to come.
You guys set a huge goal for this event..something that would have scared the piddlespot out of me. And you guys freakin' pulled it off...and made it rock.
-Pain
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Seconding a lot of what other people said:
*The side mini tables were almost universally excellent. A special shout-out to the oracle, who was incredible.
*The actors did a great job.
*This section is shorter than the bad section because I don't need to offer advice--you were awesome in all these things. They exceeded expectation and are the foundation for what is sure to be a phenomenal Grand Convo next year, with the kinks worked out. So don't take it to mean I thought it was more bad than good, but rather simply that criticism requires explanation and suggestions for improvement.
*Our quest (3-7) took over half the non-finale time. This was a combination of unlucky factors. We had a judge who had been assigned to the quest last minute, which wasn't his fault, and he also lost momentum hugely whenever the social vignettes happened, which also wasn't his fault (in fact, one of the top 10 GMs I've ever played with also has being interrupted as an Achilles's Heel). One of the other players in my group of 6 pretty much decided to come to Paizocon because of getting that e-mail from Ambrus Valsin, and the propagating factors from the fact that we lost half the non-finale time caused him to be pretty 'meh' about it afterwards (fortunately he loved all his other games, so he'll probably still come back to Paizocon next year).
Ways to fix this: Time limit on the quests? Obviously I can't just say 'have prepared GMs', since if you guys could have filled the tables with prepared GMs you would have. Maybe tap out GMs who are known to be fast at running things cold to fill in the ranks? Also, as suggested above, definitely do something different with those social vignettes so they don't interrupt. Another serious possibility--remove the quests entirely. Other than the fact that your gold will be super-dismal if you don't do the quests (and do we really come to the Grand Convo for the gold? plus if you remove the quests you can just make the finale worth more or something) it seems like it would be more fun to just not do them, at least this year. If I could go back in time, I certainly wouldn't have done my quest--the side table GMs and actors were so excellent I would have wanted more time with them.
*The finale--Another wave battle. Brutal in its CR unless you were at the very top of your subtier and less interesting than the previous wave battles I had seen due to the abrupt "you're in a room with some enemies" setup. I would have been really surprised and stoked if there had been some way to make the finale more RP centric or involve the intrigue of the night rather than a fight (maybe involving figuring out that the Blakros guy was going to betray us using investigation or something). We could even wind up in a fight along the way of the investigation and have it be the same fight, but it would give more agency, which is important when you have groups (like ours) that will end the fight with time being called, rather than beating the challenge.
Ways to fix this: More RP in the finale. Fully RP finale. Or even no finale, and just let the tale of the Convocation be one forged by the players and their interactions with the NPCs.
*Access to tables/NPCs--bdk86 touched on this above with respect to the quests. The other tables never had waits quite as long, but most tables had pretty significant waits, exacerbated for our group because of how long the quest took. I had about 5 minutes in total to RP with the NPCs, and I scouted the mini event tables like mad for the shortest lines and then spent all my time waiting to be able to get in the ones I did. I would have loved to have more time to talk to other PCs and the NPCs while sampling the mini events that I missed (particularly sad to miss Liz's Frostfur Songs table, which looked awesome).
Ways to fix this: It's possible that fixing the quest timing will automatically fix this.
(This section includes issues that probably are irrelevant except to future runnings of this exact same scenario)
*NPC appropriateness for faction missions / giving options you have to think about and RP to decide--I heard the actors ad-libbed almost everything. This makes them even more amazing than I initially thought. However, it seems like the guy who played the Taldan suitor (one of my absolute favorites of all the actors) did not realize that he was supposed to be ad-libbing a character who would be palatable as one of the only two choices for the Silver Crusade. After his social vignette and a few more appearances where he seemed more evil than the Cheliax characters, I voted for the other choice of my two choices sight unseen (and in fact I never saw her for the rest of the night except for during her social vignette). Admittedly, this probably only caused a problem for Silver Crusade PCs. I'll say again that his acting job was awesome and his portrayal was one of my favorite for the NPCs--if he had been a choice for Cheliax and Taldor, for example, and not been one of the choices for Silver Crusade, there would be no issue.
Ways to fix this: Just specifically watch out and make sure for each faction, both of the two choices keep themselves competitive vis-a-vis their two factions. In character, even if that Taldan guy was exactly as evil as portrayed, if he realized that each of the suitors was drawing votes from two power sources, he would have been smart enough to at least pretend to be more good-aligned to appease the Silver Crusade.
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I had a great time and it was eye-opening for my character. The RP forced me to make more backstory than I previously had. My sessions later in the con were better for it (if my GM sunday am is any judge. :) Kudos and thanks for setting this up.
Bring me suggestions not problems...
Cards could have a space on the back for the skills/bonuses/rolls needed for the side tables. If they could be pre-checked at a table while waiting in line I could also avoid carrying an anvil's weight of additional resources through that part.
Side quests and intermezzi could be timed together. For example if the side quest is expected to be 45 minutes long (starting every hour on the hour) with 5 expected minutes of intermezzi (every hour on the :50) still leaves 5 minutes for table switching. This would prevent the GMs from being interrupted/intermezzi from being overrun, and still leave plenty of time for the non-side quests from being interrupted. (+1 to having the side quests in a side room and/or assigned times for the same reasons. :)
There should be twice as many side quests tables as random tables, especially if the timing is twice as long. My group did not make it to half the tables and when we finally got into our side quest at the end it was interrupted/rushed.
Do we know the results of the faction missions yet?
We did not make it to many tables, but I really appreciate the ones I did make it to. The cast was well prepared for all the in character ad-libbing that was needed. (did you rent pro costumes or are there that many proffesionals seamsters in your volunteer pool! )
I also liked how different skills translated to the activities. Not sure I can say more about the specifics without spoiling things :)
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We did not make it to many tables, but I really appreciate the ones I did make it to. The cast was well prepared for all the in character ad-libbing that was needed. (did you rent pro costumes or are there that many proffesionals seamsters in your volunteer pool! )
Every single piece of costume in that event was done by the individuals who were assigned that role.
We drew our NPC's from VO's, local actors, and trusted friends with the required experience to pull off the roles.
We pulled in professional actors, opera singers, long time LARPers, and highly knowledgeable VO's willing to costume.
As for the results...you will have to wait until after paizocon UK. They get a voice in things as well. The only thing they all had in common was a love for gaming and all things pathfinder :)
Please keep the input coming, the more details we have the better we can craft the experience for next year.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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- Everyone's nametag for the convocation. Running at a con is hectic enough, so getting to use everyone's character name for initiative and introductions makes things simpler, as well as helps keep them in character for the entire event. That said, it was a little funny to note that I GM'd for a table of VOs without knowing who they were, since I had only met them as characters. Only later did I see their red shirts and go "ohhhh!"
- The multi-part nature of it. I liked how the convocation was split into events, auctions, RP dialogues, mini-events, and then the actual convocation. When I went through YOTS earlier this year, it was essentially one combat encounter after another. Which was enjoyable and exciting, but I much preferred this format to that one.
- The silent auction. This was the only time I wish I hadn't been GMing. Cause damn, there were some really cool items there >.<. I think that the auction really made people value their characters more than "he's my level 12 fighter." Now, "he's my level 12 fighter with a talking sword, that was presented to him..." etc etc.
- More time for convocation mini-events I know that the convocation was a huge amount of work, and that the people who put it on should be bought drinks until we're all staggered, but I wish it had been longer. Honestly, I think Saturday should have just been a convocation day. That way, everyone would have gotten to experience more or maybe even all of the side events. Have it go from 10 am to sometime like 8, running those events and having those RP moments more spread out so people feel less rushed. And then at 8 start the actual convocation. That way people won't feel like they missed anything. That was the biggest thing I heard from my players "I wish there was more time at the convocation to get things done." Realistically, I know that having a longer convocation isn't really feasible, since it's mainly volunteer work that does the heavy lifting, and I bet those NPCs would hate having to be dressed up for double the length of time, but I think that even an hour or two longer convocation would be that much better.
Other comments I would make have been made already, so I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks again to Kyle Elliot and the other organizers for making it the best convocation yet, now get started on next years!
Venture-Captain, New Zealand—Dunedin
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I attended PaizoCon and I missed out on this. That would be the biggest bit of feedback that I could give for this - when the sign-ups for the lottery events first went up, the Grand Convocation was not listed alongside. A separate email went out a few days later making sure people knew about it, but changing up preferences can be tricky, especially if you're not on the website everyday.
Emphasis on the fact this is the Acme of Pathfinder Society social events would be my suggestion.
-Dink
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- The silent auction. This was the only time I wish I hadn't been GMing. Cause damn, there were some really cool items there >.<. I think that the auction really made people value their characters more than "he's my level 12 fighter." Now, "he's my level 12 fighter with a talking sword, that was presented to him..." etc etc.Actually now it's "he's my level 15 cleric with a talking ioun stone."
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I was not able to attend the Grand Convocation. Can some let me in on how the rules went? Are we looking at well dressed dice throwers, rock, paper, scissors, or traits. Wondering what Paizo is looking for. Are they looking for table to LARP back to table style play or maybe a complete LARP style game.
Venture-Captain, Oregon—Portland
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I'll start my ramblings off by saying I didn't play or GM through the "questing" portion of the Grand Convocation, I was VC CJ's "go-fer" up until the Finale. But I'd like to add my observations and two cents anyways. ;)
If I had known I was going to be a go-fer, I would have tried to dress the part, if only to fit into the background more with the other NPCs. Unfortunately, I had been under the impression that I would be a GM for the entire Convocation, only to be told that I wasn't on VC CJ's "list" when I started asking him about it. To keep my tier 1 GM status I volunteered as a go-fer, which wasn't a big deal and I really did enjoy myself. I know of this happening to three other "GMs" at least, so I would suggest maybe a better way of tracking who is doing what for the GC?? Not really sure how else to fix this though.
As far as the questing went, +1 to those who mentioned that more time should be set aside for the side quests or have a time limit of some sort for GMs. I know someone above also mentioned just increasing the ratio of quest tables to RP tables as well. I saw a lot of party's just standing around, seemingly not interested in the RP tables and just waiting for an open quest table to open up.
Also, there should have been clearer instructions for the parties going in on how things should be working. I know we started off doing things one way, then changed halfway through. In the beginning, I was under the impression that parties would do one event, then return to the social area to RP and socialize before returning to the questing. I don't know that any parties were actually aware of this, and we had issues in the beginning with finding open tables to send parties too. Again, this changed and we allowed everyone in at once, so not so much an issue anymore. I liked the idea of a separate area for socializing and RP, I just think the hallway was much to small for this. I would say Mike was correct in moving everything inside for two reasons, allowing more people to see the RP, and also because otherwise it seemed that everyone would have just stayed in the questing area and not seen or heard the RP events.
When the finale occurred, I was told to pick a table to GM with no warning whatsoever. It's kind of humorous in retrospect, but at the time I was panicking because I had nothing to GM with and no idea what I would be running, having not seen any info on the Convocation or the finale scenarios previously. Luckily there were GMs with extra dice and a bestiary as well as Mark bringing over a map for me to use, but if one of my players didn't have cardboard minis, I would have gone old-school and used whatever change I had in my wallet as minis. I know I was not the only GM that went through this, so I would suggest having a LOT of backup items for GMs "just in case."
I loved the NPCs running around, interacting with each other and the players. I don't have any experience with LARPing, so I was naturally nervous going into this event, but everyone did a great job with everything. I loved the little side RP events that went on throughout the night, and like others mentioned I just wish I could have heard them better. Some of the costumes, from NPCs and players alike, was amazing and I'd honestly like to see more of this at conventions, maybe best-dressed contests of some sort? I know my wife was disappointed with this, as she loves making costumes for my two sons and would have loved to design something befitting a "Pathfinder family" for us all to show off at the Con if there had been something of that nature.
I don't have first-hand experience with the questing and RP table events, but from what I did see they were awesome. I stood next to the Archery Contest most of the night guarding the door, and everyone sitting there seemed to be having a great time.
I thought the finale went off very well. I was originally going to GM a mid ties table, but had a party of third levels sit with me, and they did a fabulous job of rolling with me having to change what few plans I had in seconds. I had two new players sit at my table, and luckily there was also a couple there who were experienced enough to help out one player. The group did very well protecting the Blakros, healing them when necessary and keeping all of them alive. Everyone enjoyed how their "Bardic Performance" affected nearby tables, as well as the "Channeling" they received from another table at one point that was much needed. I do wish however that players would have gotten some idea of the plots for the other tables, if only to know what the higher level parties had been doing during the melee. It would have been nice for all players to find out what the 12+ players had done, as well as how all the other players had contributed to the defense, such as how the mid-levels attacked leadership and so forth.
All in all I really enjoyed the event, and I look forward to more such events in the future. One thing that might be neat is to have "mini"-specials at other conventions as well, that all tie in somewhat to the over-reaching special at PaizoCon.
I think I shared most of this with Kyle already Saturday night...but I can't quite recollect how many drinks I'd had by then, so I'll post it all here.
First off, this was my first PaizoCon and it was the Grand Convocation thats going to ensure that its not my last. I had an absolutely awesome time. Those I came to con with all agreed later on that night that the event really energized our desire to play Pathfinder Society more. So kudos on that.
I'll outline my thoughts as the night went on.
First, the initial mustering of all the attendees was chaotic and confusing. We had no idea what was going on or what we were supposed to be doing. When people started yelling out that we needed to be in groups of 6 with people around our level it became a challenge figuring out how we were supposed to do that. I consider myself fortunate that I was there with two others and so already had half a group. Had I been there alone I'm sure the introvert geek part of me would likely have really struggled dropping in on already forming groups and asking them if I could join.
Everyone in our group felt that if there had at least been numbers posted on the wall and a message put out that you were to find the number that matches your character level and then go from there things would have been a lot smoother.
The event itself was loud and chaotic, but I kind of enjoyed that. I agree that we jumped right into one of the "quests" and as such didn't get to participate in all of the side tables. To be honest, I would have prefered if the conventional table top stuff was left for the finale, and that this would have been fleshed out a little more.
I think the largest suggestion I could give would be to provide a better idea of what will be happening without giving too much away. I would liked to have role played my character a little more with the (totally awesome) NPCs whereas I know others would prefer to stay boxed in at a table and avoid that all together. Had I had a better idea of what the evening was going to look like, I would have prioritized better.
Additionally, having the events laid out a little differently would have made things easier to navigate. Had quests been on one side, game on the other and the Boasts in the middle (so everyone can see them) things would have been a lot clearer.
Even something as simple as when coming through the door our group is stopped by one of the NPCs who says something like, "Welcome fellow Pathfinders, I am ______, but of course you knew that already. Welcome to our Grand Convocation, a celebration of blah blah blah. We have feasting and games to the right, where you may display your skills and boast of your adventures. Share horn of ale with a few of the other Venture Captains or perhaps chat with one of the [insert plot line NPC]. Or course, if you wish to support the Society in a more...active manner, please go and speak with so and so. He/She might have a job that needs to be taken care of this night. Though if you choose to undergo such a task you might not get a chance to buy {insert VC, guest, etc] an ale!"
A lot of people I talked to didn't like the interruptions, aka the 'cut scenes.' I did. I thought they were a great way of brining us back to what was really going on. It made me 'be' in character.
I must say that casting made all the difference for this. Some NPCs owned their role, and when they did the crowd fell silent and was right there with them. Those that struggled to hold the crowd were the ones in which people kept playing while they were talking.
I tend to ramble and this is going on too long already, but I'll add my favorite moment of the whole 'con:
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Liked:
Having all of the Venture Captains, Suitors and other guests at the Convocation was really cool, even though I didn't get a chance to really interact with them(I was running the scrolls table).
The overall plot/storyline of the event was also great(I won't go into detail here, to avoid spoilers), though I kind of wished it extended through the rest of PaizoCon instead of only being present for the Convocation.
Finally, I know a lot of people enjoyed the mini-events such as Scrolls, Channel your Deity, and the Boasting Contest. I kind of wish I had a change to participate in these as well - I would have loved to Channel My God.
Didn't Like:
The table setup seemed very disorganized, and often people didn't really know what was going on. I must have had four or five groups of all martial characters who were directed to my table that evening, and I couldn't do anything for them. Likewise, I knew several wizard friends at the Convocation who would have loved to stop by my table, but were told all table along the wall(which my table was) were exclusively for high level play(which my table wasn't).
I also agree that while the added bits of story were great, having interruptions every 5-10 minutes for the skits really broke player's engagement.
I also wish the procedure for running Scrolls was simplified, because it often took me longer to explain what it to each person who stopped by than than it did to run them through the event and sign the chronicle sheet. I honestly don't think we needed an alternative boon for spontaneous casters; the prepared caster boon would have been fine for everybody.
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I am still unclear about what was happening at the various tables. Even at our first table, fortune's wheel, I am confused what was happening (and I would like to know more about the boasting contest, channel your god, scrolls, archerfeast, and frostfur folksongs :) A solution: spend some of the in character blogs and/or emails address/include housekeeping items. Frex the following, if still used, could include:
The interactive rules listed on the card.
The various inter-actives one can participate in (and associated skill if any)
Expect a name tag and faction mission at checkin
Find a group of 5-6 like leveled Pathfinders
Find an empty table, join the interactive and display your card*
While waiting for an empty table interact with the NPCs (per faction mission)
Bring a character sheet and d20. Other dice, minis, chronicle sheets, core assumption books are not needed (if they ARE needed, could they be coat-roomed until the mini quests?)
PP values for the auction (see below)
I know some of this was mentioned in a thread, but an official announcement would have been a help, especially the cannot 'die' rule. *most of the tables did not ask to see the card, but those who did initialed it (prevent double dipping?)
On a related note, am I right that a group of 5th or 7th level Pathfinders got three quests? Firsties, 10th & 11th and retirees only got one?
On the auction (re-posted from another thread as it is relevant here... I was out priced before even starting (solution: tiered auctions), I had no idea what was being auctioned (solutions: posted outside main room, posted all day Friday, hints via blog.) Majority of the items did not reflect my character in any way (solutions: faction specific items, general character type items (arcane, divine, melee, ranged, sneak, face) PFS specific items (improved wayfinders, improved vanities, prestige/fame bonuses).