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Wondering what other people thought about this years special at gencon?? Not one of my favorites...but some of that is my fault and some I thought was the special design.
I had generic tickets so I knew that I might not get in but thought I would try. But the mustering was really a mess by us (level 3-4). The poor guy working the clip board had no idea what was going on and went back repeatedly for clarification and communication. They tried to seat all the real tickets first and then generics. This makes sense but there were no lines, no organization, no groups so the poor guy was mobbed.
I got there an hour early and stood by the muster point hoping to get in line but it seems that since there was no lines it did not matter everyone just mobbed the door and chaos ensued. (really needed a protection from chaos). The biggest issue I had..is I got there early, stood in line, checked in the muster captain (not sure what he is called) as soon as he showed up but others of the same level were seated before me. In fact at the end I was told there would be no table for me....after they seated a bunch of generics right in front of me that showed up later. I guess I should have been more pushy and really pestered the the guy. Luckily one of the other people that was not getting in was a GM (2 star I believe) and he offered to run the mod cold for the people that were left. Which was great!!!! I could not thank him enough...awesome support from the community. I got lucky...there were a bunch of lower levels that got turned away....
We had issues with some of the timed events as both the GM and the party stumbled to understand and catch up since we were seated late. But our biggest issue was a lack of party diversity, not having any skill based characters on the table. We had 2 clerics, 2 barbarians and alchemist. This made the special extremely challenging for us but I guess was the luck of the draw.
Can I suggest something for maybe future years? I like that the special are widely diverse and challenging but maybe there would be a better way to organize. Force the players to self muster, do not report to the muster captain (or what ever he is called) unless you have a full table of 6. This will put it on the players to get a diverse party a opposed to the random seating assignment that the muster captain was doing. First he will seat tables with 6 real tickets, then he will sit tables with 5 reals and one generic...and so on. The more real tickets you have in he party the quicker you will be seated.
Also make sure the time for mustering with real tickets is clearly stated, real tickets will be exclusively seated for a given time period, not sure how long maybe 20 minutes. If you do not show up with a party of 6 then you could lose your chance play.
My hope is maybe the players could help with the organization and keep the chaos down to minimum. Plus maybe the muster captains will be able to make the will save vs insanity!
I do have one other thing, while I did not make it to the second part (not an issue) one of my friends did. He showed up for the second part, well it seemed that the rest of his table did not leaving him the only one on the table. There were other tables with the same issue so they were all pushed on to one table (ok seems to make sense). Well since they were all different levels, 2 out of the 5 players were forced to higher level generics (hmmm in the second round of the special??) and they did not have a full table(cringing now.) Also the mod had an in game time limit or your table would be TPKed in box text (what??? really??? TPKed in box text...no way PFS would do that).
Once again the table suffered from the same issue I had with pick up groups....lack of diversity. No fighter or true melee at all. They struggled to say the least....they decided to run at the end and not finish the mod, they got the word to open the door and were running out as time was called. The table GM told them they made it all the way out and were safe but he had to check with the head GM on one issue. After the discussion with the head GM it seems that he was over ruled and the party was TPKed. Really??? Over ruled and killed in box text??? Really????
It seems that a lot of the tables at the special were also TPKed at the end. Really??? So you pull the best players from the first round to TPK them with a time limit??? Also it seems really strange to over rule the table GM, since he knew the situation and had made the call.....
The death was not really the issue, I mean they had the 21 prestige points to get recovered and for the raise dead..it was the whole thing that seemed to stink. First, over ruling the table GM seems wrong, he was there, he knew the situation and had already ruled on it. Second, are we not all heroes? I mean losing a fight to horrible monster. Ok. Dying a horrible death in a strung trap. OK. Those deaths we at least feel like we tried but to be killed in box text? I mean really???? Take a second, write a ending where the players barely escape by the skin of their teeth and have to face there fellow pathfinders with the shame that they failed. Killing them due to a time limit seems very silly to me and a good way to piss people off.
With all this said I still feel that PFS is a handled very well and provides a great setting, great GMing and a fine environment to play in.
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Some comments from the other side of the fence.
Mustering will be improved for all slots. Pfs has never been this large and we ran into some growing pangs. The musters were overwhelmed. We have several ideas in the works already for next year to mitigate the chaos.
I mustered 12+, and I tried to get 12+ to work with each other and told them to get into groups of six or they would not get seated. I seated 4 tables immediately because they had their real tickets and their party of 6 sorted when I exited the hall with my clip board. I had multiple groups of three and four who refused to break into a 6 man group. I did not force anyone to sit down and told the players to figure it out ASAP before they would be seated.
My point is, and my challenge is if you had an hour to chill outside in an area surrounded by people your level, why didn't you get yourself organized then into a balanced 6 man party, because others did, and they did well in the special.
Regarding part 2. No one was forced to play and the lethality was clearly explained. If someone was caught blind by this then they need to start paying attention. Mike has been saying on the boards, on podcasts, and spreading the word in every media stream possible that this will be the deadliest scenario ever. Play at your own risk.
Box text was to mitigate time, since you would have eventually died due to the infinite number of your enemies because the time call meant escape just became impossible.. Escaping without success was not an option that I was aware of. It was supposed to be a do or die scenario.
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Both scenarios are designed to test every facet of what it meant to be a pathfinder. If you were lacking in some area, you undoubtedly bled victory points. It was rigged for the always prepared for anything. I can't count how many pure combat monkeys complained to me that it wasn't just a grind fest to see who could wipe the bad guys fastest. It made me roll my eyes because I've never once heard that the pathfinders were "only" efficient killing machines.
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Force the players to self muster, do not report to the muster captain (or what ever he is called) unless you have a full table of 6. This will put it on the players to get a diverse party a opposed to the random seating assignment that the muster captain was doing.
That's the way it was done in 2011 (from what I can remember). There was chaos but it seemed to work out OK.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Mike, here's a couple of suggestions:
1) For the Special(s), give each of the GMs two sub-tiers that they'll be very likely to run. Prepping to run the Special well, with no time-sucking looking-up-rules, is hard. Prepping the Special for each of six sub-tier is grueling. Prepping a sub-tier, knowing that it's unlikely that you'll have to run it, is disheartening.
(This is especially true of the very high sub-tiers. Prepping each round for the 10-11 and 12+ sub-tiers took me about an hour-and-a-half each. That's six hours of prep work that I didn't need to do.)
2) The muster captains were disinclined to give me my table number until they had a group of players to send with me. The GameMastering 101 talk included the advice, "It's terribly unprofessional for the players to get to the table only to see the GM just start to unpack." The current muster system requires that GMs can't get to the table ahead of the players.
Otherwise, I think the system has a lot of the bugs worked out.
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Played 8-9...neither GM pulled any punches. We advanced and ultimately tied for first at our tier.
Also...for what it's worth, there was a husband and wife duo at our table and the rest of us didn't know each other. We met at the marshalling area, and I was playing an iconic.
The round simply required goal-oriented roleplaying and some combat/puzzle skills, not to mention some small amount of luck.
Good round. Two good judges. A good time and great memories.
Was this the one I ran for part 1? You played merisiel?
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Was this the one I ran for part 1? You played merisiel?Played 8-9...neither GM pulled any punches. We advanced and ultimately tied for first at our tier.
Also...for what it's worth, there was a husband and wife duo at our table and the rest of us didn't know each other. We met at the marshalling area, and I was playing an iconic.
The round simply required goal-oriented roleplaying and some combat/puzzle skills, not to mention some small amount of luck.
Good round. Two good judges. A good time and great memories.
I played the ifrit, so I think it was part 1.
I leave this feedback in the hope that it helps make things better for next year...
Round 1 of the special was great, we managed to get lucky and catch on with a good group of 4 other players and make it to round 2.
Mind you when I say we got lucky, that what I mean, we did not pre-muster ourselves (preform groups) as it was our first special and we did not know that was an option.
Telling us that (or even a little sign) would have helped.
Round 2.....
Simply put this was a cluster F$#@.
The Muster sent us to a table where the GM actualy asked "why are you here?" We were playing 5-6, he was prepped for 8-9.
After informing us that "Mike screwed the whole thing up" he went off to find a GM that was prepped for the tier.
...... Fast forward nearly 45 min........
We had several other GMs come to our table, ask us what tier we were and leave.
Eventualy we did get a great GM. And while reading the rest please understand I dont think this was his fault at all, he did his best to make it as fun as he could.
So, the GM we did get was not prepped for our sub-tier. and as the mod uses creatures with templates, he had to take the time to convert all the creatures.
Again, he did his best, but thats a lot of work and time.
Then we only had one player with the knowledge skills needed to understand stuff.
Sadly with DCs of 22+APL (so 29 for us) on knowledge checks that you cant aid another on nor retry we knew NOTHING.
The entire first 2/3 of the mod are one giant puzzle, a puzzle mixed with historical stuff on the runelords.
As we did not make our checks the GM leveled with us "Listen, I'll be honest with you, without making the checks thae really is almost no way for you to get this"
So we stumpled through and with a mix of luck and the GM not wanting us to simply sit there we made it on.
Did I mention how late we started? yeah its a timed event.
anyway we make it to the end, kill the dragons (I hate to say, but this was the only fun part of the whole thing) then are on our way out when time is called.
Our GM, knowing we got rather screwed on time says "Ok well you didnt finish but at least you don't die"
We all breath a sigh of releif, some go to the bathroom and all is while not "good" at least it is over.
So he goes up to report something and then comes back and says "um....... yeah...... about that living thing...." then procedes to read us some box text saying we were all dead.
honestly we thought he was kidding.
He was not.
Dead. Zero gold. Please spend 16 PP on a raise then more PP to remove negative levels.
I have to say I LOVE PFS.
However this was the worst run adventure I have ever been a part of. To sum up one of my party members feelings it was "nearly 6 hours of misery"
The muster issue happens, I get that, its a huge event.
But then we got screwed at the end due to starting so late, and that sucks.
My party pointed out that they would rather have died to the dragons, when the GM mentioned that if that happened then the bodys would not have been recovered and would have cost MORE PP to fix, their reply was "Well thats true, but at least getting eaten by a dragon doesnt make you feel like this"
Ok, thats just sad.
Again, I hope that this helps make it better next year.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Thefurmonger,
Here are my thoughts, speaking entirely personally. I'm not a Venture Anything, and my only connection to the Special was to run it as a table GM.
First, congratulations for getting to Round 2.
Second, I'm real sorry to hear about how the chaos at the beginning of the event affected your table. If we want to point fingers at anybody, we could blame the people who agreed to GM the event and then didn't show up. Things were more stressful than they needed to be.
Third, the lack of prep-work was unfortunately, nobody else's fault but your table GM's. We were all asked to prepare all sub-tiers. If the first GM had prepped for both sub-tier 5-6 and 8-9, or if the fellow who eventually settled at your table didn't stat out the templated critters in the days leading up to the convention, then that's on their shoulders.
(It's always possible that Mike had made sub-tier assignments for the GMs in the messages leading up to the convention, and I just didn't notice it, and so I ended up doing a hell of a lot more prep-work than I needed to do. If that's the case, then I take back what I said about your table GMs.)
Fourth, and most importantly, I think that "round 2 of a Special event" scenarios can and should include the kinds of adventures that are beyond the scope for general release. The settings and plotlines should be more epic. They should ask more from GMs, and more from players. Looked at in that light, I can see the appeal to a "escape or die" adventure for Round 2.
The problem, I think, was that the dire nature of the time limit wasn't explained clearly to a lot of the players, which made for hard feelings. That condition is written into the scenario, plainly and repeatedly, but it's not explicit in any of the boxed text. VC Heidmarch sends the party off, saying: "I fear there's only enough power in the key to keep this portal open a few hours. You'll have to go through the portals now, while they’re still active. Explore what you can and then get out before the portals close." But it's not stated explicitly that once the portals close, you'll be trapped there.
And lastly, your table GM was right: you needed to bring to the table either (a) a PC with good Knowledge skills, or (b) a player who knew a lot about ancient Thassilon. (When you hit the room with the huge faces in the walls, though, your character might end up with a brand of a rune of sin, which provides a +4 modifier to any Knowledge rolls regarding Thassilon.) You also needed pretty good rolls in Knowledge religion, arcana, and geography. Without that resource, this really is a frustrating adventure.
Having said all that, I want to take a moment to compare my players for rounds 1 and 2. If anybody's interested in participating in this sort of adventure, it illustrates a recommendation.
The Level 3-4 party I was privileged to run in Round 1 consisted of friends who had played well together. They understood their characters very well, and they understood the need for commando-like responses to threats. This was not their first trip through "battle interactive" convention specials. They did well enough to be competitive, but didn't end up advancing.
The Level 3-4 party that I ran in Round 2 had some friends in it, but also included a fellow playing Pregen Kyra 4, and two young men who had only advanced their characters to 2nd level. They weren't that strong a party in terms of arcane magic, having only a magus.
But they were relaxed going into this, and ready to have fun. They not only handled the threats, they did so in character. This is a shout-out to the guy playing the "dumb as a bag of hammers" paladin. Dude, you probably don't appreciate how much of a lynchpin you were to that team. You made sure to keep the spirit of the table light, while also keeping everybody focused.
My table for Round 1 was a good team of exceptional players. They all paid attention, they all came up with good ideas, they all followed through with tactics the way a table of friends who had played long and hard with one another can do. When an obstacle or assignment came up, they threw out two or three ideas, decided on the best course of action, and implemented. I'm confident that if they had managed to advance to Round 2 -- and their failure to do so speaks to the excellence of other teams much more than their own achievement -- they would have done well.
My table for Round 2 was an exceptional team. Significantly, if somebody threw out a good idea, each player determined if it was a bad idea on the surface, and then they went with it. n immediate, good idea, even if it's not great, was getting them through on time faster than a discussion producing the best idea. And everybody --even the new guy running Kyra -- felt free to make suggestions.
And that's a major reason they were able to move all the way through the dungeon, and then get back. The sealed doors at the end required either magic to get through (beyond the pay-grade of 4th-level PCs), enough moxie to beat down the doors, or else the name of the Thassilonian kingdom that Runelord Krune ruled. (One of my roommates back at the hotel called this "Knowledge (history) or die.") One of the players looked through his notes and spoke the name of the kingdom, hinted at on a map he saw hours earlier.
And that's why they have goblin race boons.
Chris,
Thank you for the reply.
I suppose my main point is that weather or not the huge delay in starting was the fault of the first GM at our table when we sat down, the second GM that almost ran us, or the third GM that had not read or prepped our tier, it was not our fault.
We as players lost easily an hour or more due to delays and covernsions. or the GM having to say "Hold on, I have to try to figure out how this works" (Then take a few Min reading the adventure, leafing through some books, etc)
And really these things happen, however in our case they happened in a timed event when, no, it was not really explained that time=TPK
Honestly it was a really frustrating adventure capped with being told we lived....... wait a second, no you dont. Box text FTL.
It just really put a pall over Gencon as it was the last event most of the round 2 people were doing.
All the GMs are voulenters, they all did a really tough job, and I think them all, along with all the event staff.
However in this case it just feels like a ball was dropped somewhere along the line and we got the short end of the stick due to it.
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I enjoyed the special in both parts. We played 8-9 and did wind up in a tie for first. My wife and I loved all the puzzle aspects of Part II. I do want to know who designed the ritual that left me bleeding out in the Lodge in Magnimar seeking a Miracle spell to prevent my death, then discovering that that was not even an option that I must die and then be raised. (16 PP for a Resurrection, thank you Part 1). Suggestions for the future:
I agree that mustering could be improved, it seemed like there were a lot of kinks to be worked out,
Self police badges, two players from my home venue were basically DQed because a judge was removed from the con, If you don't have a badge, don't even begin to sit at a table. Thank you Mike Brock for allowing those two to replay the scenario at our hometown con, I think the way the situation was handled was exceptional, however the fact that it occurred means there is room for improvement in the way PFS does things for the special.
I have no issue with a TPK on a timer, I do have issues with a game pause while a player steps away for a biological break in those 5 hours. Those 5 hours are critical, if someone leaves the table it should not stall the game, other than that I thought our table GM was outstanding, of course I already knew that about him before we sat down, I appreciate your hard work Jason Roedar(sp?), thanks for providing an awesome experience.
All in all I would love to do this again, and plan on it next year. See you then when the Brute Squad makes it's return.
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Venture-Lieutenant, New Hampshire—Merrimack
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I can't imagine the logistical nightmare that the explosive growth of society play caused. My group of 4 (all real tickets) showed up 1 hour before the session. But because of the chaos we were split up into 3 different groups. 2 of us ended in 2 different groups that were not well done. We lost a lot of time due to GM unpreparedness.
I'm neither mad, nor deterred from this though. It was still fun and i'll do it again next year.
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Most of my impressions below are only of Part 1:
I was a GM for part one at 5-6 subtier (of one of the teams that advanced to round 2). I have to say it was one of the most fun experiences I have ever had. Their team was a group of 4 friends (2 fighters and 2 clerics) and a couple (sorceress and magus).
I had all my stat blocks prepared, extra flip mats on top of the ones provided by Paizo, and only drew the small maps used in a certain part of the encounter. My team did horribly at the halftime score due mostly due to the lack of rogue and certain skills, but rocked it in the second half. They were one of the very few teams to get to the waves portion of the final encounter and 3 of those at that!
That said I still got a few things wrong, and it was if nothing else a great time and really prepared me for running it again at DragonCon in 2 weeks. But I hope that the preparation did pay out for my players. We still roleplayed, still rolled some nice combat dice, potions of fly and gaseous form were drank, and some fireballs thrown.
It was meant to be a tough mod and I for one did not pull any punches (sleet storm + stinking cloud + grease ftw). Grats to everyone who played part 1, whether you advanced to round 2 or not. I think this is my favorite special to date.
Hey Carlos
This is the Magus from your Special round 1.
Thanks for a great game, seriously it was awesome.
I will admit the special this year was not very fun for me. Not that the scenario was not well written, I could tell it was, it is just hard to see through a poorly run game.
We could just tell the DM was not prepared for the event, he constantly referenced the notes, and at times there were long pauses (minutes sometimes) where he had to figure out what to do next. In a timed event, that was extremely annoying.
Also, he tried to take care of initiative with memory. Never bothered to write it down. So there was more delay when he lost track of who was next. Finally my friend just took the initiative to write it down and go through the order himself.
And where I certainly want the scenario to be challenging, and we should have no breaks, it did seem he was going out of his way to deny us points. I make no excuses on not advancing. But we had some great role-playing at times to convince NPCs, even rolled well a couple times to go along with it, and he just shrugged and told us "They still say no."
Of course I don't know what the scenario indicates, and don't claim that I do, but it just felt to me he was disappointed when we completed something and took glee when we didn't.
I have nothing against PFS, I really like where it is going and had a great time with my other PFS events, with some very good to great DMs. So I think this is just an isolated incident, but it is disappointing it happened during the special event, which I was really looking forward to.
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I have to say that my group's experience with Part 2 of the special echoed Thefurmonger's. We started 45 minutes late (tier 5-6) even though we were seated early. We had several guys come by and ask us what tier we were and then walk away. One guy came up and asked then muttered as he walked away "That's not good. Not good at all." A little disconcerting to say the least.
Our GM (who I liked a great deal) did his best but was not prepped to run our tier. I think he said he was supposed to run subtier 1-2. He was basically reading and running it on the fly, and we had to pause for long periods of time while he read and figured things out, or applied templates, or looked up rules. There were also apparently big issues with the maps the GM was provided for the scenario... I guess there were late changes and it was clear some of the maps did not match each other very well.
We still had a really good time despite all that stuff though. We've been stuck with GMs pulled in "off the street" at the last minute before so we as a group are willing to be patient and just have fun even if it isn't snapping along with clockwork precision. That was not our issue.
Our issue was with the fact that it was not explained to us that A) Time limit = TPK, or B) we would be expected to fight our way back OUt of the dungeon. As Chris posted earlier, it is not really emphasized in the descriptive box text read aloud. And FWIW I was seated next to our Gm during the event and afterwards I saw the document he was working from looked like a poorly formatted manuscript in Word, not a polished piece at all. I felt bad for him seeing the huge blocks of text he had to parse through under duress. Again, he did the best he could I think.
If we had known all that, we probably would have turned back at the 75 minute mark to get out with our lives and tell Sheila Heidmark to fetch her own artifacts in the future. (Our group is all Shadow Lodge and wasn't particularly happy with her "win at all costs" orders in Part 1...)
We solved all the puzzles, cleared all the monsters, made enough of the knowledge checks, killed the dragon, and got the macguffin. Then time expired and we figured we had "won" because we achieved what we thought was the main objective and it was presumed we would just walk out without incident having killed every enemy in sight.
Unfortunately our GM returned after turning in our score sheet and infomed us that we were all dead. VERY demoralizing, to put it lightly. Our GM was pretty disappointed too, I don't blame him one bit for this (just for the record).
To add to the disappointment, when we got our chronicles we saw that were were awarded NO xp. So we soldiered on under less than ideal conditions, beat the big bad at the end, and all we came away with was a net loss of 11 Prestige Points and 2,760 gold pieces each.
The next day we found out that XP should have been awarded (this was an error on the chronicle that apparently was not clarified for our GM) and someone in charge amended and signed off on our chronicles... at least those of us still there at 4:30 on Sunday.
So, overall we had a good time during the session but then felt like we got screwed at the end through no fault of our own. Many of us felt like we would have been better off going to the scenario we had originally scheduled rather than doing Part 2 of the special.
Our group loves Paizo, has been very pleased overall with our PFS experiences, and plan on continuing with Society play at next year's con. But I have to say this was a demoralizing experience for us overall and we are not really interested in doing any special events moving forward.
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My point is, and my challenge is if you had an hour to chill outside in an area surrounded by people your level, why didn't you get yourself organized then into a balanced 6 man party, because others did, and they did well in the special.
Both scenarios are designed to test every facet of what it meant to be a pathfinder. If you were lacking in some area, you undoubtedly bled victory points. It was rigged for the always prepared for anything. I can't count how many pure combat monkeys complained to me that it wasn't just a grind fest to see who could wipe the bad guys fastest. It made me roll my eyes because I've never once heard that the pathfinders were "only" efficient killing machines.
Yes I agree and in the future I will try to muster my own table as opposed to letting myself be mustered. I think the diversity is great!! Do not get me wrong about that point. I think every module should be written that way...but they are not. Most mods try to accommodate the diverse groups you get at cons, basically allowing any group to be successful. This one was not, it was specific required a balanced party and in my eyes should have been mustered that way so every one would have a chance. But again I do feel it was my fault for not pulling together a party and I feel lucky I got to play at all since I had generics.
I also think PFS does a great job getting everyone on a table since they were mobbed. But my hope was to help them by forcing the players to muster there own tables as opposed to what happened. I think we sort of defaulted to the Muster Captain which was wrong.
Regarding part 2. No one was forced to play and the lethality was clearly explained. If someone was caught blind by this then they need to start paying attention. Mike has been saying on the boards, on podcasts, and spreading the word in every media stream possible that this will be the deadliest scenario ever. Play at your own risk.
Box text was to mitigate time, since you would have eventually died due to the infinite number of your enemies because the time call meant escape just became impossible.. Escaping without success was not an option that I was aware of. It was supposed to be a do or die scenario.
Yep no issue with deadly scenarios....my point was heroes die on the feet trying to disparately stop the tide of evil. So getting killed by monsters, caught horrible traps or destroyed by evil wizards makes sense. Doing all of this in the confines of a encounter were the players can use their skills, their training and their brains makes sense. I have died in many a scenario where we out matched. Death is not the issue at all. The issue is "Ok you hit time limit...you all die! Thanks for playing have fun!" it seems that since you (no player input) control that situation it was your choice to to kill the players....as opposed to bad luck. poor rolling or a poor decision making. I guess you could argue that not leaving earlier was a poor decision...
The group I mentioned above did that and still got over ruled that they were dead. Which was the major issue I think...They know they failed the adventure and would not be up for any boons. But to have the GM sit back down and say "Sorry my boss said you guys are all dead." really sat wrong with them.
I am a PFS supporter so I spent the next few hours talking through the issues. We got by the pick up group...that is just the way it goes. The first round he got set at a table where the other 5 were a home group that plays to together all the time. He was sort of expecting that in the second round but ok not so much. We made it through not finishing the adventure and actually that was not a big deal at all. He knew why and did not actually think they would get as far as they did. But we could not come up with reasoning to kill whole parties in box text at the time limit. Finally at 2:30 am after a pizza I decided I would post on the forums to get other peoples thoughts. Maybe it was just us that felt this way.....
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As clarification, the box text doesn't kill people. If you do not make it out of the dungeon within the time allowed, the defenses of the temple shut down the gate and you can't leave that way. If your party has teleport, or some other means of getting out after the defenses are fully set into place, then you can escape. But after the exit portal is shut down, the portals that opened allowing daemons to come through is an endless stream due to the portals connection to the daemons home plane.
We could have let people sit the and roll dice for the next three hours until all of their resources were expended and they died to the continuing onslaught of daemons. But, if you don't get out of the dungeon in a few hours as was advised by Sheila Hiedmarch, and if you don't have your own means of getting out from inside a dungeon located inside the middle of a mountain or shutting down the gate, you are essentially trapped in the dungeon with an open gate of daemons pouring through. So, the conclusion paragraph advises that you are essentially dead due to the continuous stream of daemons coming through the portal instead of making players through dice in futility.
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As clarification, the box text doesn't kill people. If you do not make it out of the dungeon within the time allowed, the defenses of the temple shut down the gate and you can't leave that way. If your party has teleport, or some other means of getting out after the defenses are fully set into place, then you can escape. But after the exit portal is shut down, the portals that opened allowing daemons to come through is an endless stream due to the portals connection to the daemons home plane.
We could have let people sit the and roll dice for the next three hours until all of their resources were expended and they died to the continuing onslaught of daemons. But, if you don't get out of the dungeon in a few hours as was advised by Sheila Hiedmarch, and if you don't have your own means of getting out from inside a dungeon located inside the middle of a mountain or shutting down the gate, you are essentially trapped in the dungeon with an open gate of daemons pouring through. So, the conclusion paragraph advises that you are essentially dead due to the continuous stream of daemons coming through the portal instead of making players through dice in futility.
Wait, What?
Our party did have a way of escaping. We had Teleport, Greater Teleport, and Plane shift available. We were told that none of that mattered, if we were still inside when the gate closed, we were dead.
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As clarification, the box text doesn't kill people. If you do not make it out of the dungeon within the time allowed, the defenses of the temple shut down the gate and you can't leave that way. If your party has teleport, or some other means of getting out after the defenses are fully set into place, then you can escape. But after the exit portal is shut down, the portals that opened allowing daemons to come through is an endless stream due to the portals connection to the daemons home plane.
We could have let people sit the and roll dice for the next three hours until all of their resources were expended and they died to the continuing onslaught of daemons. But, if you don't get out of the dungeon in a few hours as was advised by Sheila Hiedmarch, and if you don't have your own means of getting out from inside a dungeon located inside the middle of a mountain or shutting down the gate, you are essentially trapped in the dungeon with an open gate of daemons pouring through. So, the conclusion paragraph advises that you are essentially dead due to the continuous stream of daemons coming through the portal instead of making players through dice in futility.
I seems to me that the "box text" did kill them well at least the way I am reading your post above. While in the conclusion paragraph "a continuous stream of demon" overwhelms them and thus TPK. All in text that was read at the table? Yes I understand there was a time limit. I am not sure the party expected to just be killed out right at the time limit. lol I thinking sitting and rolling dice for 3 hours is why we come to the con and pay all the money in the first place.
But all that aside I understand the situation I think the real the issue was they thought they made it out according to the table GM, only to be told after that they were all dead. Maybe this was a miscommunication or something but the players felt cheated and the GM was not really happy about TPKing the party.
Once again this thread was really to get the feelings about the special and provide place to discuss in a hope to understand
Edit
hmmm teleport and such would allow them to escape?? Seems like that give the high level tables a lot options to live then the low level tables.....
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I will also note that I made a decision to let every player from round 1 keep their Chronicle sheet from round 1 instead of turning it in. I knew this was going to quite a few deaths.
I knew the Chronicle sheet from round 1 that
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Just a thought/question (I didn't play either parts of the special so I honestly don't know).
Was the "timed" part of the scenario run by one "master clock" or by each DM at each table?
If the former, maybe for future "timed" scenarios make sure each GM has a stopwatch or alarm on their phone or write down the exact "start time" and etc. That way muster-delays won't have as much of an effect on score/success.
Having heard stories about the special, I kind of wish that I hadn't had other obligations off-site so I could have gotten in on it!
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As a GM for the first GC special, my group was not suited for the skill challenges presented. While the group was a great group. Very fine players they had a bad series of rolls.
This was at tier 8-9. So rules. I had no clue if if I should round up to 10-11 with 7 players. I heard was informed not to later was told to do a increase. I followed the 8-9 tier, I think the 10-11 would of resulted in a tpk.
There was echoing sentiment about the morale choices. Shiela had the PC's do. This was not focused soley at my table. I heard it through out GC. Every time she addressed players during introductions od scenarios.
I also think that GC specials should stop stop being competetive and be cooperative like the First GC special. Players have always been expected to cooperate and suddenly it is a team competion.
GC special part two.
I have to saw WOW. The writing in this was perhaps the best I have ever seen in a Paizo product. It is indead special. I am not sure how much of this was my GM, Tim Hitchcock or Kyle Baird but WOW.
The Puzzles and the enviroment was GREAT. The descritive text at the room the paneling the puzzles etc. Was the best I have ever seen as a player.
The combats. Felt deadly
Sadly the time issue was my main concern. At the GM table playing 10-11. It was not clear to me or I assume the table at all there was any sort of time limit or PC death. Or really that time limit was a concern.
We ended facing a Dragon, that was going to face its hellish demise to 2 divine worshippers of Erastil. 2 players at my table had yet to suffer any damage of any kind. The dragon head would sit eternally on the fire place above a manor house in Oppara.
As time was called the session ended. Some players stayed at the table while the GM turned for turn in to explain we failed with Key points.
Then returned later to explain we also were dead and had to have our bodies recovered and raised.
This single aspect of time versus TPK is seriously the most shortsided effect or writing that could ever possibly be wrote. Paizo should take a LONG hard look at this effect. This squarley lies I believe on Tim or Kyle but this circumsatnce should never EVER be placed in any product. At high tier believe it or not PC's have resources at the disposal to escape being stuck, spells or magical abilities to escape.
I know from different players this is feeled by several players. It is Deux Machina complex the should be removed from any and every published content.
For my own comfort.
I envision my Inquistor fighting back to back with Arbitor a fellow Inquistor fueled by divine grace by a fellow cleric of Erastil for eternity pushing holding back the endless tides of demons. I choose a perma death, option rather than. You die time has expired.
Mike report my charcter dead my character number 1500-2.
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As clarification, the box text doesn't kill people. If you do not make it out of the dungeon within the time allowed, the defenses of the temple shut down the gate and you can't leave that way. If your party has teleport, or some other means of getting out after the defenses are fully set into place, then you can escape. But after the exit portal is shut down, the portals that opened allowing daemons to come through is an endless stream due to the portals connection to the daemons home plane.
We could have let people sit the and roll dice for the next three hours until all of their resources were expended and they died to the continuing onslaught of daemons. But, if you don't get out of the dungeon in a few hours as was advised by Sheila Hiedmarch, and if you don't have your own means of getting out from inside a dungeon located inside the middle of a mountain or shutting down the gate, you are essentially trapped in the dungeon with an open gate of daemons pouring through. So, the conclusion paragraph advises that you are essentially dead due to the continuous stream of daemons coming through the portal instead of making players through dice in futility.
This is actually the first I recall anything being said about waves of daemons at the end of Part 2. It was inferred we died because we were trapped. This is good news though, dying fighting waves of daemons is cooler than dying of starvation, thirst, and boredom, which is how we thought we went out. :)
So it would appear that even our GM was not fully aware of the parameters of the scenario. The impression I got was he thought we had accomplished what we needed to accomplish by killing the "boss" encounter. *shrug*
I have no beef with the module as written, or really with dying. We paid the cost and moved on, it happens. I'm simply stating my experience with the event. It was a chaotic mess for us. I'm not trying to say we would have "won" if things had gone perfectly from a logistical perspective, I don't expect an event that size to run perfectly. I'm just saying I did expect it to go a little better than it did. I trust Paizo and know they are trying to do their best. But I do want to get it out there that the end result was A) a good time gaming, but B) a really frustrating experience with the event's coordination and execution.
It just felt at the time a little cruel and unusual to think we had completed our mission just in the nick of time only to find out we had only actually completed 2/3 of it.
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While I was unfortunately unable to play in the Special this year, the mustering and timed elements were concerns that I heard pretty plainly vocalized throughout the duration of the show. For those conversations to make it down to the floor, well, it's pretty disheartening.
I've been mustering, corralling judges, and configuring tables for RPG events for a long time (although not as long as some people, including a judge I spoke with this weekend that's been doing it since '77 - not a game played in that time!). Some of the things I've learned that have been a HUGE help:
Judges:
If an adventure is tiered, you are required to prepare 60% of those tiers (as assigned by your event organizer).
If an adventure is timed, you are required to be fully set up at your table prior to the listed start time.
Players:
Pre-muster. This statement should absolutely be made clear in the event information, publisher's site/ forums, or announced by the event marshal during the mustering process. Pre-mustering isn't required but it makes for happy players, full tables, and speedier seating.
Event Organizers:
Mustering for con-only specials or "interactives" takes forever. In the case of a table being on the short end of the deal (see Furmonger's post), they need to be handled as a separate case with special needs; every player has paid for their experience during the show and denying them the chance to participate is really.... bad.
More marshals for bigger events. The last time I marshaled out 20 levels of a single event, I had myself plus three other marshals. Get those kittens in line, team! :)
I'd like to make it clear that I am in no way speaking for specific people or associated with the team at GenCon. I run local games for PFS, and at regional conventions I run other RPGs and events. I'm a gamer; a fan; a dude that does stuff. My goal at an event is to ensure that my tables enjoy themselves, even if their characters die.
I hope some of those suggestions make sense, and that next year's Special for PFS is even better than this one! :)
Honestly I think the main issue people are having, at least that I am having is that some tables started a full hour before others.
I know there were tables that started as soon as we sat down, before the musical GMs, before our eventual GM had to do the conversions.
Yet we all ended at the same time.
Honestly it was hard not to feel cheated.
Yes I know life happenes. And yes its a shame how it went down.
Add to that fact that sever tables were told they live, then later the GM came back to the table and di what ammounted to "Gotcha! You thought you lived? Nope...."
I know our GM really felt bad about it as did several others.
In the end, players TPKing due to starting an hour late sucks, plain and simple.
Having said that, I do love PFS, and we will sign up for the special next year. However if it is a timed thing we will say how sorry we are, wish our group well and go hit the vendor hall.
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While I was unfortunately unable to play in the Special this year, the mustering and timed elements were concerns that I heard pretty plainly vocalized throughout the duration of the show. For those conversations to make it down to the floor, well, it's pretty disheartening.
FWIW, we had a group of 7 players who played 8 sessions over 4 days and we had almost NO problems with mustering for our events other than the special. We had one game on Thursday night where there was a delay while they dug up a GM for us, but other than that we were seated on time every single time. If it makes any difference, we had prepiad event tickets so we weren't trying to get in on generics. We also arrived for mustering before the start time for the event in each case.
Other than the bumpy start and ending for Part 2, we had a great experience with PFS at Gen Con this year overall.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Here's the text from the scenario:
As time draws near for the Runecarved Key’s power to cease maintaining the portals out of the temple, each group should receive a 15-minute warning that their 5 hours in the temple is almost up. Those who escape through the portal back to where Sheila Heidmarch waits survive the dangerous venture into the lost temple of Lissala, while those on the other side of the gates when the key’s power is depleted are considered dead, for the waves of daemons will not stop their constant assault until all creatures in the temple are dead. If, however, the party possesses the means to escape through other means (plane shift, teleport, word of recall, etc.) they may do so at the scenario’s conclusion without being assumed dead,
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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On mustering:
I said it elsewhere, but here it is again. It was a mess out there, mostly because there were no lines, people couldn't hear those mustering, and generics kept pushing through to ask if they could get a table. Mike has already said that he has some ideas on how to fix this, here are a couple of suggestions.
- have a muster area for just generic tickets. This would be for every level, and the person mustering that area would have to have them stand in line while he took down names, levels, and if they were with anyone. Then, once all the regular tickets were seated that list could be used to seat people in open slots. This would keep with the first come, first serve policy and prevent much of the chaos.
- have something the people mustering can stand on so they are above the crowd and can talk to the whole group if they need to. You might also need to give them a megaphone or something to use to shut people up so they can talk to them. The noise was so bad I could hear people talking five feet away.
On the game itself, I didn't have the opportunity to play or GM but I was able to serve in the HQ, which was very fun. I liked that the special was written to be a sandbox, but it was clear to everyone at HQ that almost no one ran it that way.
My only other complaint wasn't with the special or Paizo, but with the GenCon authorities. Two GMs were kicked from tables by a GenCon Offical for not having a badge. Mike handled this, and there really isn't much that can be said about this besides cautioning everyone to have your badges on you at all times. The guy was a jerk, and he interrupted almost every game just to check badges, and lurked over the tables he didn't directly interrupt. This made players and GMs I talked to about it uncomfortable. Maybe this is something that could brought up at the GenCon boards, because it ended up ruining the night for a good number of people, not the least of which were the kids who were told that their game was over and that they couldn't finish.
Mike Brock needs a big thank you from everyone, as he did an amazing job keeping it as organized as it was. It was awesome how he handled the hiccups that turned up and did everything he could to make things right when they turn up wrong. It didn't look like it, but he was running on only a few hours of sleep the entire convention. I had the honor to hang out with him later, and wish I had had the sense to buy him a drink. He worked hard, and I have no doubt he is going to continue to do so.
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I'll take at least partial blame for the mustering not being handled better for the Special this year. Last year I made sure that players knew to self-muster into tables of 6 by tier, and we made sure that real and generic ticket holders were in separate queues that we processed individually. Things went much better doing it that way and it's something I intend to bring back for next year's Special. Some of those processes may get used for regular event mustering, as well. There are also some mustering communication issues that need to be worked out, and I'll do my best to work with Mike on improvements across the board for next year. I'm still in the process of typing up my notes on what we can do better next year, so please don't feel that we're not (painfully) aware of the issues we had with mustering in general and with the Special in particular. I will point out that we had 8 musterers working on getting everyone seated, so it wasn't primarily a lack of personnel that was the problem.
I wanted to end on a positive, note, however, so I'm going to take the opportunity to thank our three GMs who stepped up to run Part 1 of the Special cold and at the last second so that we could seat three tables worth of players that would otherwise not have gotten to participate. I didn't get all of your names at the time, so I can't properly thank you here, but you know who you are :)
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And that's a major reason they were able to move all the way through the dungeon, and then get back. The sealed doors at the end required either magic to get through (beyond the pay-grade of 4th-level PCs), enough moxie to beat down the doors, or else the name of the Thassilonian kingdom that Runelord Krune ruled. (One of my roommates back at the hotel called this "Knowledge (history) or die.") One of the players looked through his notes and spoke the name of the kingdom, hinted at on a map he saw hours earlier.
Darn. Wish I had gotten into Part 2 with Lazeril, who is from Haruka.
Sorry Kyle, I did try!
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I played the first part of the Special and it was, by far, the worst game of Pathfinder I have ever experienced. This was the first Gen Con Special game my son and I played, so we had high expectations of having fun, but no real expectations of advancing. Our issues were entirely GM related:
1. He was nearly completely unprepared. We spent as much time waiting for him to read ahead as we did playing.
2. He could not track initiative competently. We resorted to just going around the table counter-clockwise.
3. He could not read loudly or clearly enough to be heard by anyone except the two players sitting next to him. And they had to lean in.
4. He did not understand the scoring system at all. I don't believe he had read it ahead of time and it was a scramble at the end to turn in the slips of paper.
5. He had not idea how to run a chase. He pulled out the Chase Cards, held them out, and asked if any of the players at the table knew how to run it.
6. He complained constantly about the organization of the event and the content of the scenario.
Again, worst game of Pathfinder I have ever played, by far. In fact, it was maybe the second worst RPG session I've ever experienced. Shockingly bad. Most of the players completely checked out. My son and I went back to the hotel wondering why we wasted an evening at Gen Con on that.
There ought to be some sort of qualification for GMs running the Special at Gen Con.
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On a separate note, I thought that this year's Special, by the writing alone, was possibly the best I've ever seen, and we had Andrew Christian, who did a great job GMing for us. However, the competitive nature made the scenario instead the worst Special I've ever seen. Why? Because you didn't get nearly enough time to take in the scenario and all the cool sections if you were rushing for the most points. The point competition would have worked well for a scenario like Blood Under Absalom about a tournament with lots of battles, but here it just meant you couldn't roleplay as richly at all. Every stop for flavortext, to roleplay your character more, or to do things like ask how the aid another characters are assisting (elements I consider fundamental for good RP) was more time lost for the score. I disagree with the OP that some of the tables who scored the highest had lenient GMs. These GMs were cream of the crop. They wouldn't have been lenient. What they instead had was quick GMs who trim the RP to get to each event quickly. Just from my own play at my local lodge, I know which of my regular GMs I would have wanted to play under for the Special in order to have a much better chance of winning, and ironically they are the ones I usually don't choose to play under (since I prefer extra RP over speed in most cases). Anyway, I look forward to GMing the scenario at a different con without the competition to get into Part 2, as that way I won't have to feel as rushed
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Mike Brock and Kyle Baird had to slide in to GM in order to make things work ... Who ever it was that handled the mustering of this event has my utmost respect.
I'm assuming that it's the second part you're referring to. I believe Mike and Wes Nicholson handled the mustering for that, but I'm not certain. I had my hands full managing mustering for the regular games that were running in the same slot.
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Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I ran it, I agree things were a bit chaotic. I understand the decision to add more tables since we'd been getting so many players, but letting GMs run it cold I think wasn't a good idea. Thankfully I had been able to prep it some. I feel sorry for those that volunteered to run without any kind of prep, and with most of the stat blocks not being included, I'm not sure how they did it, honestly.
The one really good thing that will come from this thread, is they'll be able to learn from mistakes. I had a great time, and my players seemed to enjoy themselves. I'm sorry more didn't have as pleasant an experience as we did.
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Here's the text from the scenario:
As time draws near for the Runecarved Key’s power to cease maintaining the portals out of the temple, each group should receive a 15-minute warning that their 5 hours in the temple is almost up. Those who escape through the portal back to where Sheila Heidmarch waits survive the dangerous venture into the lost temple of Lissala, while those on the other side of the gates when the key’s power is depleted are considered dead, for the waves of daemons will not stop their constant assault until all creatures in the temple are dead. If, however, the party possesses the means to escape through other means (plane shift, teleport, word of recall, etc.) they may do so at the scenario’s conclusion without being assumed dead,
Thanks for the clarification Chris M.
I apologize for my comments, it definately was not ran with this paragrahph, which makes all the difference for my play through.
I still think part 2 was well written.
I really liked the first room, the descriptive nature of the Keys and such.
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First, a thank you to everyone who played. It was an unbelievable honor to be a part of the biggest PFS event EVER.
Secondly, thank you to all the GMs and to all the volunteers at HQ. All of them worked tirelessly to make the extraordinary event work.
So, some background: I had the extreme pleasure of being a GM for both of the specials. I believe, like Rogue Eidolon, that Part 1 was the best special yet, by a long shot. It allowed an extraordinary amount of player autonomy, as well as player input. I'm not going to give any spoilers, but the achievements of each and every player (all 700 or so of them) mattered. Events in the special changed, depending on how well the players accomplished their goals and how good they were at being Pathfinders. I cannot stress enough the unbelievable feat that this was to achieve by the organizers.
Believe me, I know that there were problems. Mustering, table consistency, timing, rushing through encounters...all of these things can be improved. But I cannot stress this enough...there were almost a thousand people to coordinate. This is the first time that PFS has attempted an event of this scale and ambition. Frankly, in some ways, it was an experiment.
There is a simple solution that would eliminate the crowding, the noise, the mustering, the GMs who are picking up the scenario for the first time. PFS could simply limit the number of players. But instead, up until the event, Mike and the rest of HQ was doing everything they can to muster more GMs, and get everyone possible in to enjoy the event.
I hope all of you enjoyed yourselves. Personally, I had an amazing experience, with two fantastically outstanding groups of players. And, if you did not, I truly hope that you are not disheartened. I hope you will continue to give your constructive remarks, and know that we will take what you say into consideration. And that Mike, Mark, the writers, and the rest of PFS will rigorously work to make the next special even better.
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If you want to direct your ire at somebody, direct it to those who did not follow through on their commitments and tossed a series of monkey wrenches into the prep that went into this event.
And I understand that happened, and I really do thank those that did what they said they would do.
I don't think the complaints are about the cluster that was the muster.
It happens, it sucks, but Mike and co did a great job trying to get through it.
However having said that..
If you (the powers that be) know that the game is a challenge to get done with in 5 hours, and you also know some tables only are going to get 4ish hours, then you need to do something.
Don't let them win if they didnt finish, thats cool.
But killing the whole table due to missing the 5 hour mark when they only had 4? Thats just not right.
Again, everyone did a great job under the circumstances, and our GM did his best. but he was behind the 8 ball when he sat down, then addin several templated creatures that he had to convert?
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Hello:
My group did not make it to round two, but we did pretty well in the first slot. Part of our difficulties came from having to extort/blackmail, become highwaymen, and rough up some people.
In the future, please take into account that paladins, good-aligned characters, and SC Faction members will be involved in a module. If extortion is expected, state up front that this module is not appropriate for classes and alignments.
The other option is to allow multiple solutions to a problem. In the blackmail case, maybe ways to prove that the PFS was not responsible or appeal to the persons sensibilities in another way? (which we tried but were told we had to blackmail or fail.)
The event was still fun, but it came with a lot of alignment frustration.
T.
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Bottom line. If a table is supposed to have 5 hours, then they should have 5 hours. Not some tables get less due to circumstances beyond their control. I realize that the organizers were dealing with a bad situation but they could have showed some leniency for the tables that started late. Instead what happened was that every game was ordered to stop and every character still inside was now dead and had to pay 25pp to return. Then before our GM could even get the 3rd chronicle sheet filled out people at HQ where cupping their hands together and yelling at us to "Get out!"
Telling us to blame the judges who flaked out on their responsibility is bad form. The Society needs to accept the responsibility. The bucks has to stop somewhere. I hope the names of those judges have been written down somewhere for next time, but the players should not be the ones punished.
Venture-Agent, Indiana—Valparaiso
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In the future, please take into account that paladins, good-aligned characters, and SC Faction members will be involved in a module. If extortion is expected, state up front that this module is not appropriate for classes and alignments.The other option is to allow multiple solutions to a problem. In the blackmail case, maybe ways to prove that the PFS was not responsible or appeal to the persons sensibilities in another way? (which we tried but were told we had to blackmail or fail.)
The event was still fun, but it came with a lot of alignment frustration.
T.
I respectfully disagree. The Pathfinder Society is not a good aligned organization. At times there should be moral complications for paladins and others with extreme alignments. If you would like to debate this more I would be glad to, however we should probably do so in another thread.