There are faction changes and other changes since the "Big Announcement", and this has been hinted at in other spots on the forum. I would like to make several requests for a new series that will replace Season 3's "First Steps".
1) This is only my own personal experience, but it may be useful if Paizo had marketing data... how many people who start out as new GMs have the Beginner Box? I did. Could the FIRST "First Steps" please try to make use of Beginner Box pawns and map? If someone has the Core Rulebook and Beginner Box, let that be enough to play ONE "First Steps" freebie to get started.
2) Please consider having the group involved portraying the Faction Heads get with someone who works marketing as well as the authors of the new "First Steps". From my perspective, "First Steps" is *marketing* for Paizo Products, Pathfinder Society and the Factions that are a part of PFS. You do *not* want your Faction Heads to act like buffoons. In your story, your faction heads are introducing themselves. They should be making a good impression and doing their damnedest to persuade the new PFS players to join *their* Faction, not acting like a caricature. The First Steps I was particularly bad about this. Read through it again. Why join the
Sczarni or Osirion? Silver Crusade is the only one that is reasonable. And the other factions introduced. If Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin is something of a jerk, that's ok. More of a push to join some other faction. But in the next series, EACH faction head is 'selling' their faction, or *should* be. Let the new "First Steps" recognize it is not just telling a story, it is selling a product. Faction Heads are part of the sale of PFS as a whole. Please don't screw this up. It is a disservice to the overall PFS product, and it doesn't do the people posting as your Faction Heads or the players within your factions favors having First Steps portray Faction Heads as idiots.
3) Please consider limiting your First Steps stories to Bestiary I and to products you tend to keep in print. I believe you *are* trying to sell your products, right? It's really annoying when I *want* to buy your gear in support of this Scenario, and it is not in print. And First Steps III requires FOUR maps, 3 out of print? None of them use the back side of the other? Seriously? I mean... I'm just starting out as a GM, I don't have all this stuff and I'm not made of money. Seriously?
4) When I expressed these concerns in other parts of this forum, you have some very excellent players who made excellent suggestions on how to get by without having to blow my budget. One of the cool ideas was to use individually wrapped candies in place of pawns I don't have. There are other ideas that were really good. You need to either get those ideas into your First Steps to help n00b GM's starting out, or better yet get a short URL to that very helpful thread so that people getting started with PFS as a GM in their area can go directly to some helpful place to get their start.
5) Please consider putting embedded and printable short-links to a section at the head of your scenarios that get me to products that support the scenario. Do you consider PFS to be a tool that helps you sell your goods? Help me get to your goods that support the scenario faster. And dear God PLEASE be mindful of either keeping that stuff in stock, or of deprecating scenarios where the supporting products are not worth keeping in stock, or something. I want to give you money. Just not huge freakin' buckets of it all at once. I'm on a budget. While this suggestion applies to all new scenarios being published, the importance of this for a new First Steps should be pretty obvious.
Thank you for considering these suggestions, and I would be delighted to see what other people think would be appropriate for a new First Steps series for PFS. We really need a new series and retire the old one. I know they are freebies, but all the more reason to get it right. This is your marketing material, this is what you want to use to sell more 'stuff' as well as PFS in general. Let's get it right and have something that rocks!
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First steps has been out for almost two years. If I remember correctly, they gauge print runs on what they think will sell out within 2 years for financial reasons (you can search for Vic's why we don't reprint thread for more information on this). Also, anything that is 'out of print' can still be bought as a PDF and printed out when needed. This might be a better option for many, as you can print the panels/side that you need when you need it. This option is also cheaper for those on a budget. When these scenarios came out 2 years ago, many of these maps were new and there was plenty of stock.
Why are so many sold out? Well... it could be because they underestimated the buying power including a map in PFS scenarios has for the product. Late season 2 early season 3 (when these came out) were when they really started including maps on a regular basis in PFS scenarios.
I think there has been a push lately to include monsters available in either pawn or pathfinder battles minis form.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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For the third part, I have printed all four of the flip mats used. With the PDF, you can print it at normal (100 percent) size. It is nice, as it prints the pages (3x4) and has the grid at the exact size you need.
Better than trying to size it out from the PDF of the Scenario. (Which is an option also)
At some point I need to purchase *one* PDF flip-mat that is out-of-print, and see how it goes. My main issue was balking at paying for the four PDFs and *still* having to pay to get them printed single-sheet (at $25 or so full-size single-sheet copy) or pay a huge chunk in color ink costs.
But I plan to keep with current scenarios, and I very much hope Paizo can keep some sort of sanity between new scenarios being published and game-aid materials they actually have in print.
Beyond the specifics of the map stuff, how "First Steps" does 'marketing' for the factions is still horrible, in my opinion. On finishing up First Steps III last night, Silver Crusade from First Steps I seemed to be the only faction head worth something. The rest of the faction heads 'as written' didn't seem to care about drawing these raw, new recruits into their faction politics.
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At some point I need to purchase *one* PDF flip-mat that is out-of-print, and see how it goes. My main issue was balking at paying for the four PDFs and *still* having to pay to get them printed single-sheet (at $25 or so full-size single-sheet copy) or pay a huge chunk in color ink costs.
If you do staples, its like 8cents per color page, and 4 8x11s per map IIRC
If you do staples, its like 8cents per color page, and 4 8x11s per map IIRC
Thank you. I'll have to try something that keeps it affordable and still a high quality.
As far as the game we did last weekend, people didn't complain about the maps I produced, but they were not happy with the 'marketing' of the faction heads, and the whole faction business appeared to be poorly executed. I also think they are confusing my interpretation of the characters with "play as written". One guy was upset with Nester Rees being eager to hurry them along, and I joked about him being fidgety as if he were doing a "pee-pee dance". They thought *THAT* was how it was written.
Overall, the main thing is for my wife and I to expand our social group and have a pleasant evening. My sense of it is that they want me to GM an open sand-box "All of Golarian is yours, do as you will" campaign. Ain't happenin'. There is an established PFS group that has started to do events when I'm available recently, and we will try to go to that as "just players". I think that will help reset my expectations and give me time to just enjoy. I really don't know what I'm doing, and it is a struggle to bound something together that I think is what I'm supposed to do without really knowing what I'm supposed to do.