So, having just been going the last month with my Rise of the Runelords with a group of friends, I've been browsing around the Pathfinder Society stuff, and other APs. My question is, what would the difference be between doing PFS and running the APs as I normally do?
From what I can see, it's more about being at the local gaming shop and offering different adventures depending on the levels of the PCs, and an ongoing reward system for doing multiple PFS scenarios. I'm afraid I might be reading something wrong, or just not understanding. If I WAS to start up a PFS at my local game shop(don't think we have one here, yet), what would be the reason to do so, in spite of me already GMing a group of players? Not saying it's wrong, just curious, really.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I would say that there are several advantages to PFS over APs:
1) You can play your character at conventions. It's a lot of fun to be able to go somewhere else and be able to show off the character that you've been working on at home.
2) It's accessible to new players. PFS, due to its modular nature, is very accepting of new players - they don't have to understand the entire story to this point, or start out with a complex high-level character.
3) It's easy to GM. Unlike an AP, PFS GMs are supposed to stick to the script and not add enemies. This is a double-edged sword. Some people hate the constraints, while others appreciate the uniformity and balance. In the end, considering that one GMs activities can have far-reaching effects on a PFS character, I think that the constraints are a good thing. It keeps a particularly nasty GM from ruining a character's resources.
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Venture-Captain, Massachusetts—Central & West
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Pathfinder Society can be both private and public consumption. You and your normal group don't need to play at a gaming store.
The benefit of that is if your character was made at a convention or your home game, it can work in the other setting, because everything is made with the same rules.
Here in Boston we have several groups that meet on their own on occasion, then bring those characters to play during the public games.
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My group down in Florida did a home PFS game. The main reason we started that way was just that it was convenient, since we could play with whoever happened to show up that week, rather than only being able to play when the entire group could get together.
Other advantages, as others have mentioned, include being able to take your PCs to conventions or public games away from your own local group. Also, you can play multiple PCs, so it gives you a chance to try out varying character types. And you can rotate GMs, so no one person gets stuck on GM duty at all times.