RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Since the other thread has gone all kinds of places, I wanted to start fresh with practical ideas. Let's start with a statement from the big man himself:
Mike Brock, Campaign Coordinator: "I am already starting to think on the best way to institute a GM feedback system that can be useful and actually work without embarrassing players or GMs, and where I and 5 star GMs have the ability to reach out to GMs and serve as a mentor of sorts to help them improve their GMing."
Okay, so we're looking for a feedback system for GMs. Requirements:
• Useful/actually works
• Doesn't embarass players
• Doesn't embarass GMs
• Grants the means for Mike and the 5-Stars (oughtta be a band!) to mentor other GMs
Let's make this thread helpful. To do so, let's do the following:
• Let's try to stay on topic (as fun as OT stuff can be)
• Don't bother with "we shouldn't have feedback" comments
• Don't bother with "we should have feedback" comments
• Stick to the "how". Either propose a general system, or even just one feature that might help with one of the aforementioned requirements.
Ready? GO!
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Perhaps have a simple card system -- maybe the size of a business card (vista print has mass deals don't they?) one side is for the information
your pfs number
convention name/gameday/event
date
slot
judges pfs number
would you like to be emailed to discuss issues further
on the back brief comments -- This could be optional depending the severity of the comments.
The player turns the card over to the coordinator once filled out, the cards are shuffled to the local VO, and from there the local VO either contacts or forwards on to mike (if mike really wants that much extra work)
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I think part of the problem with the online reporting system for this kind of thing (short-term) is the IT department being super busy, whereas for the paper reporting form it's just a matter of someone mocking something up, Mike approving it and getting it distributed to the masses.
I would also think the long-term goal would be to have a version of this online and the link on the pfs page would be good.
However, I think the paper-reporting of this would always be there, there are people that don't frequent the online boards very much and probably visit the pfs page even less (sad panda) so those issues would largely go unreported, however, a slip of paper at the HQ desk or from the coordinator is easy to grab, fill out and get back to the coordinator.
just my 2coppers
Venture-Lieutenant, South Dakota—Rapid City
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I believe the system should send out two messages when a comment is given; one to a higher up (either Mike Brock or to a designated person to handle/sort the comments) and to the GM. The form would be a link off of the Played Session tab of the My Pathfinder Society page, so the date, event, GM, and scenario are listed. From there, the player can mark any metrics that are on the form (either a set of radio buttons ranking topics on a 1-5 scale with a couple of open comment fields).
The knowledge that both the higher ups as well as the GM in question would get the message may help to keep the comments civil (unless the person is honestly angry and does not wish to do so, which is in poor taste). It also gives GM's time to prepare statements if questioned by the higher ups for the session or simply to enjoy the warm fuzzies if he/she was given kind words.
Not sure if I would want anonymity, albeit, depending on how much information is given to the GM from the survey, the GM could deduce survey creator anyway.
My thoughts at least.
EDIT:
I think part of the problem with the online reporting system for this kind of thing (short-term) is the IT department being super busy, whereas for the paper reporting form it's just a matter of someone mocking something up, Mike approving it and getting it distributed to the masses.
I would also think the long-term goal would be to have a version of this online and the link on the pfs page would be good.
However, I think the paper-reporting of this would always be there, there are people that don't frequent the online boards very much and probably visit the pfs page even less (sad panda) so those issues would largely go unreported, however, a slip of paper at the HQ desk or from the coordinator is easy to grab, fill out and get back to the coordinator.
just my 2coppers
I agree with this, too (and mentioned it in the original thread)... other than perceptive GM's will 'forget' to give the cards to players if he/she foresee negative reviews coming in (again, working retail, I know giving an angry customer directions to a survey page is asking for a talk from management). Good GM's, on the other hand, will want to get feedback to improve their game and would get more out of a system like that.
What about things for the non-net-savvy players?
They have to be SOMEWHAT net savvy in so much as the fact that to create characters they'll have to go to paizo.com, create an account, then login and create the character with a PFS #. While there may be the rare few players that somehow can get access to everything offline (usually by having others provide the materials/documents), I'd have to mark it as a 'if you really want to give feedback so we can track it, you'll have to go to our site' thing.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Although it's painful to say it, I think it's important that whatever is implemented be something that will give useful feedback on the GMs who don't already try to acquire feedback. I forget who it was who said he had multiple tables of people tell him they'd had a terrible experience with earlier slots, but I'd wager the GM(s) who provided those bad experiences was not someone who tries to end each session with asking their players what they could improve on. And that's the GM (or GMs) for whom this feedback system needs to be most reliable.
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Just going to post some ideas off the top of my head. I haven't thought these through in detail, so I may be overlooking some major flaw or better idea.
I think the ideal system, which would take a while to implement by the IT people, would be to tie reporting of sessions to feedback. When the session is reported to Paizo online, an email would automatically be sent to every player in that session asking for their feedback, with a link to a survey.
Standardized questions could be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, including questions about things other than just the GM. For example, "How prepared was the GM? How well did he know the rules? Was the scenario too easy, too hard, or just right? How clean was the venue? Did you have a fun time overall?", along with many other questions. Then there could be open ended comments boxes for more detailed praise or complaints, at least one for the GM, one for the scenario, and one for the venue.
But again, that would probably take a while to implement, so I'd consider that a long term solution. In the short term, maybe do a one time email to the entire PFS base with the survey questions, asking people to fill it out and email it back every time they play. Create a new email address specifically to collect those responses.
Another short term solution might be to just include a note at the bottom of all chronicles saying "Email PFSfeedback@paizo.com to let us know how you liked this scenario, your GM, and your playing venue." Again, this would be a new email address set up specifically for the purpose of collecting these responses.
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I'll bite.
1) No rating system. We're talking about something that fundamentally just can't be quantified.
2) Anonymous. This is more a formality, since in the event of complaints, the Judge will more than likely be able to suss out the complainant from the context.
3) Boons. Not for the highest rated, or even for the most complimented. Just at random, or at Mike's (or the VO's) discretion, when he reads a particularly nice note about a Judge. That should ease the sting a little from all the complaints we'll be getting.
4) A cooling-off period (online only). The "complaint" button for a given session doesn't go live until 48 hours after the session ended. This would reduce the amount of knee-jerk, "the GM wouldn't let me use Sleight of Hand untrained so I couldn't get my faction mission" types of complaints. If it's a more pressing matter, it should probably go straight to Mike or the VOs anyway through normal channels.
5) Let the Judges see their feedback. I'm a little torn on this, because on the one hand, I'd want to see everything, the good and the bad, so I can learn from it. On the other hand, people are naturally vindictive and reprisal could be a problem (despite the "anonymity"). But I generally lean towards keeping everything out in the open.
6) Use the feedback to create Tips & Tricks or FAQs for Players and Judges (could be done in blog posts).
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Oh, here's a thought to consider:
Something that lets players give feedback ASAP would be best. Say someone plays a single character through most of a con. Let's say that at three tables they encounter poison, and at one of said tables the GM said that poisons that required two saves to cure would affect you even if you made the initial save, which ended up making the PC an invalid for most of the scenario where they should have been unaffected. Or maybe they had to go spend money on lesser restoration to clear up some ability damage before continuing with the mission.
When that con's events get reported two weeks later, and that player gets some emails and wants to leave feedback about the GM ruining the session because he wouldn't be corrected, how the frick is that player supposed to remember which poison-involving scenario it was?
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I'm inclined to NOT let GMs see all feedback in its raw form. Let the top people (Mike, venture officers, whoever else is reading the feedback raw) summarize it for them, so they can learn from it while keeping things anonymous.
And I think some things can be quantified, but free form comments should definitely be encouraged. Even if it's just yes/no, I think multiple choice questions like "Did the GM seem well prepared?" can be useful. But I do think that assigning numeric "scores" could lead to hurt feelings and vindictive players giving bad ratings, so I can see your point about avoiding a full scale rating system.
Edit: This was mostly a response to redward's last post, but Jiggy snuck in between with another post while I was writing.
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I would let the feedback be filtered from the top and only shared if they feel it is warranted. Let's not forget that many comments could be about non-GM related issues and/or be of the "Thanks it was fun" variety.
That being said this will only work if players actually use it. I would award boons at random to GMs for having players provide feedback for any reason, positive or negative. The last thing we want is an incentive for GMs with a negative table to just refuse to tell the players how to provide comments. Perhaps also award a boon to the player who submitted the comment, though finding them may be tricky.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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If cards or similar were used, I think it best if the GM is not relied upon to provide them. Folks have already mentioned that a GM who sees negative comments coming could "forget" to provide the feedback cards. What could be done, then, is to have feeback cards available both through your table GM and from wherever it is you turn them in.
That is, if you're supposed to give your feedback cards to the event organizer, then said organizer would carry a supply of them so that a player who didn't get one (or lost theirs, or turned one in but forgot to mention something, or whatever) could come up and get one at any time. Or if there's a box to drop them in, have a stack sitting next to it.
This would solve the "forgetful GM" issue without a complicated workaround.
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it really feels like a "Feedback" system could be easily put in place.
Under sessions add a button that says "feedback"; Player's rate their experience on a scale of 1-5 and have a little text box explaining how they feel. Ala Ebay.
Even if you get a lot of pretty lame responses. some gems will be in there, and the star system would be cool
Contributor
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Something else to consider in this is workload. If the feedback system consists of people emailing a "central" email address with event codes and GM PFS #s as the only identifiers, that's asking a paizo staffer or a volunteer (a VO or 5-star GM) to do a lot of work:
- Take that email and get the info from it (event info, GM name/email)
- Disseminate that feedback to the GM
- Get the feedback to any "mentor" GMs involved in the process (4-5 stars, VOs, Mike, etc)
- Manage a system/emails/threads/etc for "mentor" GMs and the GM who gets the feedback to discuss the feedback
Not to mention if Mike or any of the VOs want to leave "notes" in the "system" after discussion about feedback has finished.
So while ideas for a feedback system are good, we should also keep in the back of our minds how much extra work we'd be asking Mike and the VOs to do.
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Contributor
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it really feels like a "Feedback" system could be easily put in place.
Under sessions add a button that says "feedback"; Player's rate their experience on a scale of 1-5 and have a little text box explaining how they feel. Ala Ebay.
Even if you get a lot of pretty lame responses. some gems will be in there, and the star system would be cool
The problem with a numerical "rating" is that people who GM but have a score less than what they think they should be might be discouraged from trying to GM.
Now, some people out there might say "Good! We don't want bad GMs running games!", but on the whole it diminishes the number of GMs out there, and also discourages people from trying to GM for fear that they might get a bad "score". I am firmly of the belief that qualitative feedback is good, with absolutely no numbers/rankings.
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Something else to consider in this is workload. If the feedback system consists of people emailing a "central" email address with event codes and GM PFS #s as the only identifiers, that's asking a paizo staffer or a volunteer (a VO or 5-star GM) to do a lot of work:
- Take that email and get the info from it (event info, GM name/email)
- Disseminate that feedback to the GM
- Get the feedback to any "mentor" GMs involved in the process (4-5 stars, VOs, Mike, etc)
- Manage a system/emails/threads/etc for "mentor" GMs and the GM who gets the feedback to discuss the feedback
Not to mention if Mike or any of the VOs want to leave "notes" in the "system" after discussion about feedback has finished.
So while ideas for a feedback system are good, we should also keep in the back of our minds how much extra work we'd be asking Mike and the VOs to do.
+1
Part of why I'm voting for a simple feedback system. If people get too many negative reports, VOs or Mike can specifically narrow down the GMs consistently having problems. This allows Mike and VOs to do more involved investigations on the people having consistent problems.Everyone makes mistakes and has bad days, one bad table shouldn't doom you as a GM, but 5 or 6 bad tables; Something needs to be done. Consistent negative experiences will drive players away. Which is obviously the worst thing that can happen.
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Whatever evaluation instrument or mechanic is used, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease lets not have "rules knowledge" be the #1 criterion.
Sure having the basics down is important, but there are lots of GMs out there who know rules and aren't very good GMs. (not just talking PFS, but in general) I'd rather have a GM who was not iron fisted on rules but managed eventual disagreements in a good way.
How about as a criterion: "This GM added to the fun of the game." (rate 1-5)
OR "This GM was prepared, did his/her best to run on time while accommodating varied play styles and involving every player in the story."
(Spoken as someone who doesn't have a dog in the fight other than as a player)
And after reading another thread, I think it is up to the players to help the GM enforce rules violations, whether deliberate or as an oversight. This isn't grade school tattling - it is trying to ensure the fun of everyone at the table and the GM has enough to worry about without making them responsible for everything on the players' sheets also.
EDIT: And I'd also like y'all to consider that anytime negativity is thrown at someone who really worked on preparing the event for the players, you're going to be reducing the number of GMs wanting to run games. So be careful how you evaluate. There are some GMs who need the input whether they want it or not, but most of the GMs make the effort and have enthusiasm for a good event and I don't want to do anything to discourage that.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Whatever evaluation instrument or mechanic is used, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease lets not have "rules knowledge" be the #1 criterion.
I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone thus far has advocated "evaluation" in the sense that involves "criteria". We're not talking about determining how good or bad of a GM someone is. Just feedback, to help GMs improve, even if they're already great.
And rules knowledge needs to be included as part of that. Not as "the #1 criterion", because there shouldn't be a #1 criterion, but it needs to be one of the categories.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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How about this:
First, only conventions and events with a dozen or more tables will be evaluated. The GMs volunteering there already show that they are willing to do more than the others. This also cuts down on the amount of work that Mike has to do.
Mike, the five star GMs, and the VCs secretly hand pick players who are asked to sit down and play at random tables. These secret players then sit down and play the game. They can't tell anyone they are there to do anything but play the game, and must be very professional in how they play. They can't evaluate someone they know personally, though that might be hard in bigger events. During the game, they are to pay attention to everything the GM does and evaluate them. They don't write anything down about the evaluation right there though, they do that after the game and in a private place.
Once they have finished playing the game, they go and fill out an official form that asks questions that cover a wide variety of subjects. They turn it in and are finished. If they are asked to do it multiple times in an event they could keep going, but I think once or twice is enough for each of the secret GMs.
Mike and the five-star GMs could then read through them, evaluate them, and at the end of the event offer some feedback to those that need it and a big pat on the back to those that deserve them. They could possibly offer a special boon if they wished to those that ended up having above and beyond reports, but I am not sure how I feel about that idea.
If this works out, having x number of good reports could be added to the list of requirements for five-star status.
I think this is a good idea, but I think it needs to be paired with a player feedback system. GMs need to bring the awesome and do all the work. Whereas players just have to bring the awesome. So how about we foster a system whereby the GM isn't the only one responsible for improving.
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I think the key here is to keep this as simple as possible. Players aren't going to want to fill out a six page form every time they finish a scenario and organizers don't have time to deal with that.
Just a simple Positive/Neutral/Negative overall experience rating and a brief comment section.
Complaints that need to be addressed right away (character death, ongoing effects, sundered equipment, etc.) should still go through the normal channels. Players shouldn't expect to receive an immediate response via the feedback system.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I think this is a good idea, but I think it needs to be paired with a player feedback system. GMs need to bring the awesome and do all the work. Whereas players just have to bring the awesome. So how about we foster a system whereby the GM isn't the only one responsible for improving.
+1
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I think this is a good idea, but I think it needs to be paired with a player feedback system. GMs need to bring the awesome and do all the work. Whereas players just have to bring the awesome. So how about we foster a system whereby the GM isn't the only one responsible for improving.
Perhaps, but player behavior can already be addressed: the GM can talk to them, and if necessary ask them to leave the table. Currently, a player can't ask the GM to leave the table; instead he must either walk away himself, or suffer through the rest of the scenario without having much fun, and then if he knows he can do so he can talk to his VC or to Mike Brock and hope that any permanent consequences of the GM's antics are overturned.
So with the current system of a problem player able to be booted immediately but a problem GM needing days or weeks of work on the part of a player to have anything done, I don't think putting our first focus on GM accountability is going to tip the balance.
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How about this:
First, only conventions and events with a dozen or more tables will be evaluated. The GMs volunteering there already show that they are willing to do more than the others. This also cuts down on the amount of work that Mike has to do.
Mike, the five star GMs, and the VCs secretly hand pick players who are asked to sit down and play at random tables. These secret players then sit down and play the game. They can't tell anyone they are there to do anything but play the game, and must be very professional in how they play. They can't evaluate someone they know personally, though that might be hard in bigger events. During the game, they are to pay attention to everything the GM does and evaluate them. They don't write anything down about the evaluation right there though, they do that after the game and in a private place.
Once they have finished playing the game, they go and fill out an official form that asks questions that cover a wide variety of subjects. They turn it in and are finished. If they are asked to do it multiple times in an event they could keep going, but I think once or twice is enough for each of the secret GMs.
Mike and the five-star GMs could then read through them, evaluate them, and at the end of the event offer some feedback to those that need it and a big pat on the back to those that deserve them. They could possibly offer a special boon if they wished to those that ended up having above and beyond reports, but I am not sure how I feel about that idea.
If this works out, having x number of good reports could be added to the list of requirements for five-star status.
This is exactly the type of thing I would want to see happen to investigate a GM who has had a high % of negative reviews, I think you just waste a lot of man-hours doing these as random screenings.
in these cases the person evaluating the table needs to know the scenario, because sometimes it's difficult to tell what the GM is or isn't doing wrong unless you know what he's supposed to be doing.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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This is a weird topic. I think that any mechanism that delivers player feedback to the GM through the PFS architecture, isn't a good thing. Say you were running a convention with the following three tables.
Table 1: Fun GM who gets along well with his local gameday, has some convention experience; grumpy player who's picky about odd rules that the GM always looks up.
Table 2: World-weary GM who no longer gets asked much to GM at a gameday, since he refuses to learn the Pathfinder rules, with some convention experience; fun players who get blind-sided and hosed by the GM's rulings.
Table 3: Good GM; good players. Just bad chemistry all around. GM can't figure out why everybody is so tense and angry. Players can't figure out what the GM is rewarding.
In all these cases, the players are going to rate the GM as poor along several metrics. If a GM gets harsh feedback, there's no way to tell which of these three cases applies.
--+--+--
Let's suppose a GM notices that a player is using her laptop to access the d20pfsrd.org site, which isn't a legal source. He asks her if she has physical copies or a watermarked pdf of the necessary source material. She doesn't, and so she can't use the cool archetype or the feats and spells she normally uses. Every other GM has let her get away with d20pfsrd. She has harsh things to say about the GM, because he was applying rules nobody else wanted to enforce.
Right now, there's a mechanism for players who are upset with a session to file a complaint with the local coordinator, venture officer, or campaign director. Right now, they can contact a GM they find problematical. For player complaint, I don't think we need anything more.
--+--
For GMs who want to improve, I would propose a certification program, like the education profession has Master Teachers.
For one thing, it can review a GM's performance under Best Possible conditions, as opposed to Random Poor Experience.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I think the more complicated the feedback system is, the less people will use it. I know I've often got better things to do with my time than rank five different attributes on a scale of 1-5 (especially if the table ran long, I haven't had lunch yet, and I need to get to the next table early because I'm judging).
Filling in a quick description box of something I thought was done badly (or, for that matter, exceptionally well) is more likely - if I feel strongly about it, I'll find the time to let my voice be heard.
I think this is a good idea, but I think it needs to be paired with a player feedback system. GMs need to bring the awesome and do all the work. Whereas players just have to bring the awesome. So how about we foster a system whereby the GM isn't the only one responsible for improving.Perhaps, but player behavior can already be addressed: the GM can talk to them, and if necessary ask them to leave the table. Currently, a player can't ask the GM to leave the table; instead he must either walk away himself, or suffer through the rest of the scenario without having much fun, and then if he knows he can do so he can talk to his VC or to Mike Brock and hope that any permanent consequences of the GM's antics are overturned.
So with the current system of a problem player able to be booted immediately but a problem GM needing days or weeks of work on the part of a player to have anything done, I don't think putting our first focus on GM accountability is going to tip the balance.
True, but I thought we were talking about improvement, not booting. Two different situations.
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Oh boy, now I get to have complete strangers not only tell me how terrible I am at judging to my face, often for reasons that have nothing to do with me (module plot, difficulty level, killed their character, etc), but also tell the campaign staff whatever they feel like so I can have a "mentor" appointed to me?
Yeah, no thanks. I'm volunteering my time to run this game for you. I am not a service employee. I am not getting paid for this. I am doing this to have fun and to enable others to have fun. I do not want to constantly worry that if I make a simple rules mistake at the table, instead of someone talking to me afterwards, they'll go tell campaign staff that I "lack rules knowledge."
Don't have a formal judge rating system. Right now, if something goes wrong, contacting your local VC or Mike Brock is enough.
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I think we are making this way too complicated. The reason I brought this up in the first case is that most players have no idea where to direct a complaint at a big con like Gencon. We know they can talk to Mike but most of them have no idea who Mike even is. All we really need is a transparent, anonymous system for dealing with feedback.
All this other stuff is just adding complexity that is not needed as it is really just the bottom 5% at most of gaming experiences we are talking about.
I have only had one GM who was bad enough to be worth complaining about, having played every year since season zero.
We don't need a new bureaucracy to accomplish the simple goal of basic quality control.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Chris, your examples make it sound like a feedback system would merely ask "How good was your GM?" and expect people to be able to figure out what was going on. As long as we have room for specific feedback, I don't think the issue you describe will be that big of a deal.
In your "Table 1", the feedback from the picky player is going to be things like picking on how he ruled an ambiguous charm person situation or getting the ambient light level wrong in the overlapping AoE's of daylight and deeper darkness.
At Table 2, you're going to get things like denying sneak attack against all undead, not allowing Take 20 to search for traps, only allowing barbarians to rage once per combat (instead of by rounds), etc.
At Table 3, people would have to either figure out what they thought was wrong (in order to answer specific questions on a feedback card) or not leave feedback.
I think any VO worth their title can tell the difference between one card that says "the GM didn't allow the +4 to resist charm person in situation X" and "the GM use charm person to get Thog to murder his party in front of the obvious villain".
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Chris, your examples make it sound like a feedback system would merely ask "How good was your GM?" and expect people to be able to figure out what was going on. As long as we have room for specific feedback, I don't think the issue you describe will be that big of a deal.
In your "Table 1", the feedback from the picky player is going to be things like picking on how he ruled an ambiguous charm person situation or getting the ambient light level wrong in the overlapping AoE's of daylight and deeper darkness.
At Table 2, you're going to get things like denying sneak attack against all undead, not allowing Take 20 to search for traps, only allowing barbarians to rage once per combat (instead of by rounds), etc.
At Table 3, people would have to either figure out what they thought was wrong (in order to answer specific questions on a feedback card) or not leave feedback.
I think any VO worth their title can tell the difference between one card that says "the GM didn't allow the +4 to resist charm person in situation X" and "the GM use charm person to get Thog to murder his party in front of the obvious villain".
What exactly does any system proposed here have over the current system (contact a VC, VL, or Mike Brock via email or private message)?
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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What exactly does any system proposed here have over the current system (contact a VC, VL, or Mike Brock via email or private message)?
Visibility/accessibility.
Most players don't visit the messageboards. A great many don't know who their VOs are (if they even have any) and don't know who Mike Brock is. Lots will be too shy or scared of repercussions to approach an individual and would prefer an anonymous channel. Some won't know how to phrase their complaints. Many will lose their nerve or forget relevant details in between having a bad experience and getting a chance to write an email.
Being handed an anonymous feeback card at the beginning of a session, or seeing a box with a stack of them, and seeing other people filling them out, will make people more aware (especially at big conventions, where the biggest issues are). The anonymity will help the quality and quantity of feedback.
Does that satisfactorily answer your question?
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@Tristan: Have a little faith in Mike Brock to be able to sort out players' BS before "assigning a mentor", alright? Sheesh.
I do trust Mike Brock. He's been a great coordinator for the campaign, and I'm really excited with how PFS is going.
I just don't think that rating judges more formally than the blanket "contact campaign staff if you have an issue" is going to be a positive thing.
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Right now, the PFS guide, which in theory all players should have read, says:
"Feel free to contact your local Venture-Captain or Venture-Lieutenant at the email provided next to their name if you have questions about private or public game days, regional events and other play opportunities, if you want to know how you can help out with expanding or growing Pathfinder Society Organized Play in your area, or to suggest a game store or convention at which you’d like to see Pathfinder Society Organized Play events offered."
If you want to add a line there explicitly saying that they can also email if they have any issues with PFS games, I would be fine with that. I think that anything else would be too much.
Right now, there are just as many problem players (if not more) as there are problem GMs. I understand that some people had bad GenCon experiences, but cons are generally very stressful. People often get shuffled around to modules they haven't prepared, or are often drafted due to last-minute drops.
I do not feel that asking Paizo to police all of the GMs in this community is going to have a positive outcome.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Another idea is to have a special feedback boon offered. If someone wants it, they have to go and ask for a feedback form from the coordinator or HQ. They fill it out, and are given the boon. Somehow figure out how to limit it to one feedback boon person, but still allow them to fill out the form for multiple tables.
GMs like me would actually inform the players about the boon and encourage the table to go and fill out the form. Maybe one out of five will actually do it, but it would at least be helpful.
This will acomplish a few things:
- The forms are filled out when the game is fresh in the minds of the players.
- It can be anonymous
- Mike can control the type of information he is seeking
- Both good and bad reports will show up.
- GMs that want feedback can gain it.
- Players are encouraged to report both good and bad experiences.
You could mix this with my random secret player idea and together both methods grant you a pretty complete picture on what is going on at the tables.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Right now, the PFS guide, which in theory all players should have read, says:
"Feel free to contact your local Venture-Captain or Venture-Lieutenant at the email provided next to their name if you have questions about private or public game days, regional events and other play opportunities, if you want to know how you can help out with expanding or growing Pathfinder Society Organized Play in your area, or to suggest a game store or convention at which you’d like to see Pathfinder Society Organized Play events offered."If you want to add a line there explicitly saying that they can also email if they have any issues with PFS games, I would be fine with that. I think that anything else would be too much.
Right now, there are just as many problem players (if not more) as there are problem GMs. I understand that some people had bad GenCon experiences, but cons are generally very stressful. People often get shuffled around to modules they haven't prepared, or are often drafted due to last-minute drops.
It's my understanding (I could be wrong) that lots of new players, especially at cons, don't really know what PFS is and are trying it blind, not even knowing that the Guide exists. Players are expected to read it at some point (and sooner than later), but expecting someone to be introduced to PFS for the first time at a con, have a bad experience, and then go and download the Guide and read it after deciding they'll probably never play again and give feedback, seems a bit unrealistic.
I do not feel that asking Paizo to police all of the GMs in this community is going to have a positive outcome.
Mike said he wants a feedback system, not a means to police the GMs. Surely you can see the difference, yes?
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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By the way, I think that any system used is going to show that the majority of GMs are doing good jobs and providing an enjoyable experience. It just so happens that the bad experiences cause the loudest comments.