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1) What's the appeal to mixing a large scale real life bureaucracy with fantasy gaming?
Accessing the vast pool of said bureaucracies gamers.
2) Please tell me this is better run and less irritating than White Wolf's much longer running LARP version of the same thing, is it?
There is FAR less eye liner, and its much less rigid. Anyone can run a game, you don't need to have an acknowledged chapter. All the information flow is one way: from the dms to the organization.
3) If you're in an area where it looks like the closest PFS bureaucrat is more than 8hrs away are you just SOL on getting something started in your area?
Nope. Anyone can run a game any where any time. All you need is a pfs number.
4) If there's money involved is it remotely worth the price of admission, what are the real benefits?
-Bigger player pool
-You sound all officially if you're asking your gaming store for space
-You can have convention games with YOUR character: this was the big draw for me since i love conventions but hate not getting to make a character for the games.
-only expense is the adventure scenarios. less than 5 bucks a download.
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Just to avoid confusion.
Ah. Well then. Serves me right for not reading/following every thread.
With a tear in my eye I must now tell my friends and family they are prohibited from playing PFS until each of them, individually, ponies up the cash for a few books. I guess that means I can't play either, as I now have no players.
But hey, thanks for letting me know. Any suggestions on how I should break it to them?
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PFS though isn't really pathfinder. Its like a giant bloated set of ill thought out house rules. Things banned without even a reason. (deadly dealer feat... not even a good feat) The game is neutered to sub lvl 12. Dumbed down (removal of crafting and gods know what else..)
It is more or less turned into a tabletop MMO.
I call Poe's law.
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Just to avoid confusion.
Ah. Well then. Serves me right for not reading/following every thread.
With a tear in my eye I must now tell my friends and family they are prohibited from playing PFS until each of them, individually, ponies up the cash for a few books. I guess that means I can't play either, as I now have no players.
But hey, thanks for letting me know. Any suggestions on how I should break it to them?
It is one of the drawbacks -- however it does mimic life ... in order to play the game you love, you need to own the sourcebooks for that game, however, Paizo has tried to make it a bit less expensive in the form of PDFs ... bargain pricing at 10$ a piece (roughly) when you think about it, you can get 5 books for the price I paid for just the core.
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It's not how high the price tag is, it's that there's a price tag at all. I want to play a game, not recruit membership fees.
Nothing is life is ever truly free.
Paizo supplies us with a game, however, in order for them to 'fund' that game they want to sell us books that allow us to play the game.
Even free video games have a pricetag as you still have to buy them in order to play them.
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With a tear in my eye I must now tell my friends and family they are prohibited from playing PFS until each of them, individually, ponies up the cash for a few books. I guess that means I can't play either, as I now have no players.But hey, thanks for letting me know. Any suggestions on how I should break it to them?
Let me just hand you a hankie for that tear along with a copy of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play, which starts off its discussion of the Core Assumption with this sentence: "The leadership of this campaign assumes that you will use common sense in your interpretation of the rules."
For me at least, common sense dictates that a household copy of the books is sufficient for members of that household.
As for your friends who don't live under your roof, well, I personally think they would be well-rewarded by ponying up the twenty-three bucks and change it takes to meet the requirements of the Core Assumption. They really are fantastic products.
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Well I am a busy person with a wife and kids. PFS lets me play on my schedule. With home games I experienced huge waits between games, sometimes months, because we're trying to get people's schedules to mesh.
No Drama! I love I can play every week and have virtually no drama. If there is some crazy person, I can just sit at another table. No issue. In home games, there always seems to be someone who is sort of out there to put it kindly. For example, I got kicked out of a home game I played in for 1 year because the wife of the DM told me to quit talking in character voices and I said no, that using voices is a part of what I enjoy. I tried making another character, but apparently ANY voices was a problem. So I got booted, and joined organized play and was happier for it.
Another time in a home game my beloved kender fighter rogue, from whom I got my forum handle, got killed after a year or more of playing while trying to run away without a save in a magically dark dungeon filled with undead in an anti-magic field by a NPC 12 level higher because the DM was upset I was lucky with saving throws and therefore hadn't killed anyone for a while. As the DM's husband conspired to get the party's only divine caster in the dungeon with me, it ended the campaign. I tried running a campaign after that with that group, but the crazy was just too thick to work for long.
I now have a lot more sane gamer friends than before, which is a plus.
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For me at least, common sense dictates that a household copy of the books is sufficient for members of that household.
This right here, campaign leadership has stated it is ok for families in the same household to share their Paizo resources for PFS play. That said if you and your family are at a convention and only one of you has the resource at hand you should make sure you are at the same table just in case a GM asks for that resource.
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As for your friends who don't live under your roof, well, I personally think they would be well-rewarded by ponying up the twenty-three bucks and change it takes to meet the requirements of the Core Assumption. They really are fantastic products.
I agree, but I don't feel I should be required to turn them away from my table when we play in our local events if they haven't.
The common sense thing for me is sharing books is good. If a player really will only play if he can borrow my books and never pay a dime for anything, I'd rather allow him to play. Why would I turn away a perfectly good player who'll enrich the local PFS community?
When you bought a game of Monopoly, did you complain about having to buy the materials? Do you haggle with the corner store on the price of a deck of cards? Did you tell Gary Gygax to stuff it when he sold you AD%D?
If I bought all those, I wouldn't have to turn away a player who hasn't. If a friend had bought them and I had not, he'd still let me play. What about that doesn't make sense to you?
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simple fact that if you want to use the options you need to own the resource for them --- book or pdf.
It's been this way since the beginning, not sure why this is all of a sudden a huge issue.
I think most GMs are comfortable with photocopies of the actual book (no pdfs there), as long as the player has a way to back up the option there shouldn't be an issue.
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The common sense thing for me is sharing books is good. If a player really will only play if he can borrow my books and never pay a dime for anything, I'd rather allow him to play. Why would I turn away a perfectly good player who'll enrich the local PFS community?
For myself at least as an adult, If i could not afford the $10 for the PDF of the rule books, I would not game because I would have more important things to do with the little money I had then spending on all the other icedentials that come with Gaming.
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simple fact that if you want to use the options you need to own the resource for them --- book or pdf.
It's been this way since the beginning, not sure why this is all of a sudden a huge issue.
I think most GMs are comfortable with photocopies of the actual book (no pdfs there), as long as the player has a way to back up the option there shouldn't be an issue.
I'm comfortable with being told the title and page number. I've always understood "has" to mean "possession of" or "access to" rather than "ownership of". If ownership was the important factor here, why not just display a receipt?
It's the content of the books that's important, not who owns or purchased that content to make it available to the table. The GM need only be made aware of the relevant rules put in use by the players that are not part of the core assumption. I don't think the requiring the player using them should be a requirement. It would be a good idea for the player, certainly. But I would never prohibit a player from playing just because he didn't pay what I did to get access to the book.
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simple fact that if you want to use the options you need to own the resource for them --- book or pdf.
It's been this way since the beginning, not sure why this is all of a sudden a huge issue.
I think most GMs are comfortable with photocopies of the actual book (no pdfs there), as long as the player has a way to back up the option there shouldn't be an issue.
I'm comfortable with being told the title and page number. I've always understood "has" to mean "possession of" or "access to" rather than "ownership of". If ownership was the important factor here, why not just display a receipt?
It's the content of the books that's important, not who owns or purchased that content to make it available to the table. The GM need only be made aware of the relevant rules put in use by the players that are not part of the core assumption. I don't think the requiring the player using them should be a requirement. It would be a good idea for the player, certainly. But I would never prohibit a player from playing just because he didn't pay what I did to get access to the book.
It's not about who paid what for the resource ... it's about the fact that as a GM we cannot and are not expected to have every since thing memorized. It is on the player to be able to provide a physicial/digital resource for the GM should they need to. If the player doesn't have access to the resource, how is the player understanding how it works?
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It's not about who paid what for the resource ... it's about the fact that as a GM we cannot and are not expected to have every since thing memorized. It is on the player to be able to provide a physicial/digital resource for the GM should they need to. If the player doesn't have access to the resource, how is the player understanding how it works?
Except for your final statement, that's pretty much what I've been saying. Who actually own the material being used at the table doesn't matter, so long as it can be presented to the GM. It would seem others feel it's a requirement for the player using the material to personally own its source. I disagree with them. As for that final statement, I've had to police how a player understands a rule regardless of if he owns the material himself.
Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
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I think the intent is that a player should have at the table the books (or PDFs, or print outs of the relevant pages) from which they use stuff for their character, be it a class, race, feat, spell, weapon etc.
Now this normally means each player will need their own copy, however sharing between friends or family members may be possible - but if the situation arises where they are playing at different tables at the same time I would expect each to have a copy, or arrange to play characters that don't share the same resources (and thus have no need to share a book).
As a PFS GM, if I ask for the source for an item etc I expect it to be provided, if not, it doesn't get used in the scenario.
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the final onus is on the player to provide the resource from where they got the option. If they cannot provide the resource (a physicial copy of it) they cannot expect to be able to play it. Most GMs will let them know that they need to adjust their character to take out that option and once they get the resource they can add it back in again when they are able (i.e. feat choice).
So, if your friends that do not live in your house want to go to a convention and do not have the resource. Which scenario would you prefer to have happen:
A: They get annoyed with you because you let them know of the expectation of the company and provide them with options on how to obtain those resources
or:
B: They go to a convention completey unaware and get blindsided by a GM telling them that no they cannot have their fancy schmancy option and that they will need to rebuild their character on the spot. Humiliation and embarrassment are a sure option there, and then they come back to you completely torked off that you didn't let them know and they had to ruin their character and it's all your fault.
me ... I'd take A... less drama that I have to deal with. But that is your choice as to how you handle it. This conversation has been clarified acros two threads and if you are still refusing to understand I don't think there is much more that we as a community can do for you except to pray for your players should they go to a convention unaware.
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Little- it is not that nit picky. In my local area I expect people to eventually own the books. Playing a game for 3 months straight and not owning any of the material you are using is not really the spirit. Starting out I have never told a player they cannot play if they don't have the core books. Dust Raven is bringing this argument because in another thread someone brought up that they have a problem player that is exclusively using herolab without purchasing any of the books and Mike Brock got and and said if problem player does not want to get the books after several notes that they should have the books then turn them away until they do. We are all resonable people, but when people become unreasonable about things that is when problems happen. It is unreasonable for a gm to be expected to own all of the non core material that other players are using for their characters.
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2) Please tell me this is better run and less irritating than White Wolf's much longer running LARP version of the same thing, is it?
Yes. God, yes. So very much yes. The Camarilla and PFS are kind of like apples and depleted uranium, in that they may share the same basic physical properties--they have mass, for instance--but the details are entirely different.
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I'd take A too, but then I'd also print out the relevant sections of whatever resource they are using or encourage them to play an alt or pregen.
I do the same with new players who insist on using the d20 site as a resource (though I don't print out pages of my own books for them).
the d20 site is only a legal option for GMs to use while adjudicating at the table ... it's not a legal source for players unfortunately
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Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
I wouldn't feel unseasy. Outside of the forums the frequency of arguments regarding the color of the bike shed are very few and far between. It's all more reasonable in practice than the forums make it sound.
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Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
My heat is turned off and now I'm cranky. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
These sorts of threads had the same effect on me until recently. Honestly, I've never ran into this kind of nitpickery in real play. It seems to be more of a forum thing.
The "worst" I ever had in real life is with a character with the feat Whirlwind Charge, because it completely redoes the charge rules. So at the beginning of game I state I have the feat and a printout. The DM almost always says cool and doesn't want to see it. Then the first time I use it, the DM commonly says that isn't legal and then I just hand the DM a printout of the page they didn't want to see before. They read it and 15 seconds later the game is moving again.
This situation I believe is the real motive behind the rules. If I had to fumble and sort for 5-10 minutes and/or debate whether that is the accurate wording of the feat then the game stops. No one wants that.
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Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
You can do whatever you want in your home PFS game. No one's going to audit your tables. If your players get into PFS enough to go play it elsewhere and want to use material from the additional resources, then they should expect to own and be able to present those resources.
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Paul is correct. I've never had any of these discussions during a game. These discussions are what the forums are for. :)
I have had talks about owning books at Local Games and at Conventions.
Locally I had a player that thought HeroLabs was good enough, once I told him otherwise he bought the PDFs of the books he used.
At Conventions I have had not so nice experiences on the subject. I had a player once who did not have the resource, could not tell me the reeource it came from then got very upset when I would not let him use it during the game. He told me his Home PFS GM would let him...
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I wouldn't feel unseasy. Outside of the forums the frequency of arguments regarding the color of the bike shed are very few and far between. It's all more reasonable in practice than the forums make it sound.Huh. After page one of this discussion, my vague unease about PFS had been largely diminished, and I was even having grand ideas of starting up a Society game here in little old rural Australia.
Some of the previous 19 posts have served to make me all shy again... Totally not into that kind of nitpickery.
Well, that's good to know :)
I wasn't trying to disparage PFS, or anybody for that matter. But for me (and I suspect I'm not alone), the only idea I have at all about it is what I read on the boards here.
Much of it isn't very appealing to the uninformed. And I find it tends to be mostly the tone of the statements... But the bike shed link helped :) I may start quietly canvassing for interested local parties. We'll see how we go.
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Paul is correct. I've never had any of these discussions during a game. These discussions are what the forums are for. :)I have had talks about owning books at Local Games and at Conventions.
I haven't. I have informed a player what he needs to use a non-assumed resource, but never discussed it (at least during the game).
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To the newer people, don't let all this discourage you. It's the Internet, the anonymity brings about the smeghead in everyone, haha.
I've been playing PFS for a few months now and still own none of the physical books. I do have PDFs of the books I use and print-outs of the pages in question.
In order to utilize content from an Additional Resource, a player must have a physical copy of the Additional Resource in question, a name-watermarked Paizo PDF of it, or a printout of the relevant pages from it, as well as a copy of the current version of the Additional Resources list.
Reasonably, this would apply to the material in Core Rulebook as well. Any material you draw your character from.
The best part is there is a statement (though I can't recall from whence) is that you cannot be asked to prove ownership of the material. So if you cannot afford the $50 rulebook or are sharing with someone else, you can photocopy the relevant pages for your character if you're at different tables. Of course, you will still want to not violate copyrights or copy the whole book for your own means.
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Paul is correct. I've never had any of these discussions during a game. These discussions are what the forums are for. :)I have had talks about owning books at Local Games and at Conventions.
Locally I had a player that thought HeroLabs was good enough, once I told him otherwise he bought the PDFs of the books he used.
At Conventions I have had not so nice experiences on the subject. I had a player once who did not have the resource, could not tell me the reeource it came from then got very upset when I would not let him use it during the game. He told me his Home PFS GM would let him...
I am very sure regions vary.
I play at a game store with 4-6 full tables each week. I think I heard one person once or twice mention the requirement as a hint that you should go over and buy the books off the shelf. The game store is making a ton of money without harping on it. The owners have told me this and they have a big expansion to show for it, which is impressive in a big city.
At cons, I've heard similar things from when I've asked people their experiences. With statements like, "there is no time for GMs to worry about that", and "people are less likely to carry around their 15 books for 3 days for their 3-4 characters they're playing."
I've never been asked to show anything other than the Whirling Charge description and the witch writeup in the APG a couple of times. Both of these are because the GM had no idea it was possible. As a GM I've asked to see the text of something a few times, but it's always been because I'm unfamiliar with a class or feat. I can pretty well predict what I need to have photocopied.
Generally, if you make playing games a fun and laid back experience, then people enjoy it more and play it more. And they buy more.
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I've never been asked to show anything other than the Whirling Charge description and the witch writeup in the APG a couple of times. Both of these are because the GM had no idea it was possible. As a GM I've asked to see the text of something a few times, but it's always been because I'm unfamiliar with a class or feat. I can pretty well predict what I need to have photocopied.
I just realized that wasn't completely true. I was sitting at a different campaign right next to PFS and there was this guy acting like the society police. Doing long character audits, etc of every player at his table. There was this very nice couple and the woman, who was very new and was clearly not trying to pull something, was so scared that she about cried.
Watching this kept me out of PFS for probably another 6 months.
However, I've never seen the guy since I started playing pfs.
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I've never been asked to show anything other than the Whirling Charge description and the witch writeup in the APG a couple of times. Both of these are because the GM had no idea it was possible. As a GM I've asked to see the text of something a few times, but it's always been because I'm unfamiliar with a class or feat. I can pretty well predict what I need to have photocopied.
You've mentioned this a couple of times I think, and so I'm curious. What's "Whirling Charge?" I can't find a reference to it.
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I've never been asked to show anything other than the Whirling Charge description and the witch writeup in the APG a couple of times. Both of these are because the GM had no idea it was possible. As a GM I've asked to see the text of something a few times, but it's always been because I'm unfamiliar with a class or feat. I can pretty well predict what I need to have photocopied.
Generally, if you make playing games a fun and laid back experience, then people enjoy it more and play it more. And they buy more.
The only time I ever bring it up is when something is used I have no idea about.
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I've told someone they couldn't use their spell once. It was something out of Ultimate Combat, which I haven't memorized (I think it was spontaneous immolation?), and if they didn't have the book to quickly show me what the spell did, I wasn't going to waste time searching through my tablet for it. I let the player in question prepare scorching ray in place of them, and we got past it quickly. Our players tend to bring books or printouts for stuff they want to use, but as Dragnmoon says, I'll only enforce it if I as a GM need the material they're supposed to have.
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I've never been asked to show anything other than the Whirling Charge description and the witch writeup in the APG a couple of times. Both of these are because the GM had no idea it was possible. As a GM I've asked to see the text of something a few times, but it's always been because I'm unfamiliar with a class or feat. I can pretty well predict what I need to have photocopied.You've mentioned this a couple of times I think, and so I'm curious. What's "Whirling Charge?" I can't find a reference to it.
Sorry, it's "Wheeling Charge." It's from Cities of Golarion. It basically is an advanced ride by attack that lets you ignore most charge rules, if you're mounted and from Lastwall.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/wheeling-charge-combat-local
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Sorry, it's "Wheeling Charge." It's from Cities of Golarion.That is a Nice Mounted Charge Feat!
Yeah, and it's rare to even see mounted combat, much less this feat. It's a very legitimate thing to ask to see as a result. Hence, the reason I hold a copy of the text next to my character sheet.
I would do the same thing in any campaign I was in, home game or not. It's just good player etiquette.
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This is the appeal of PFS. Some would argue that Mods or scenarios or adventure paths, whatever you want to call them are limited, with possible outcomes restricted. While the free-form adventure gives players and GM's ultimate flexibility at a moments notice. I think most people would agree that that the free form adventure is preferred overall. I certainly enjoy it. Unfortunatly, the free-form game or 'home game' that I run is only weekly at best and subject to the schedule of the 5 people playing in it. This can get frustrating, as most people know, holding a core home game together for extended months or years can be very difficult.
Enter: Pathfinder Society. The structured, open-world gaming with a level playing field, wherever you play it. Sure, there are some weird rules (like buying back loot) but the benefits of hundreds of available players, with a balanced power scheme, allows waaaay more playing opportunities after the home game has ended for the week (or month). You can take your character anywhere the Society is played and sit down with other gamers and have a fun time. That's the appeal.