PaizoCon 2013 Wealth and Playing Up spoiler

[Jack-of-Blades]

Andrew Christian wrote:

If majority gets to decide, will they pay for the minorities death? Or is them forcing him to play up still his responsibility?

If i was forced to play up by majority rules and i was really serious about wanting to play down, i might walk away even if it means the table cant happen.

+1 to this.

As a general guideline with my characters, I tend to be a "No guts, no glory" sort and will (almost) always vote to play up simply because I love the challenge and want to see if my characters can take it head on.

On the other hand, I will never fault someone for not wanting to play up.

There have been occasions where I've voted to play down because of a variety of circumstances, not the least of which being left with the choice of playing the low man on the pole or going home. There have been occasions where the GM went with the Majority Rules line of reasoning and forced me to play up. The party assured me they would protect my squishy little lowbie and that they'd help pay for my return should I die.

They lied.

I was absolutely slaughtered because when combat happened, they all retreated and left me (with the lowest initiative) in front of the big nasty thing with teeth, claws, rend, and other unpleasantness. I was shredded in one round.

Not only did they not help protect me, but they left my corpse there, finished the scenario, and then refused to help me with my raise dead because I "Hadn't contributed meaningfully to the scenario, nor had I pulled my weight at any point."

Majority rules is horrendously unfair when it's what determines the lethality of a scenario versus potentially making it a tad boring and a unchallenging. You may disagree, but that's just my two coppers.

[N N 959]

There are a couple of different related discussion going on here. One of the things that I think would help is if PFS heads of state clearly defined the problem(s) they were trying to solve and the importance with each. When I listened to the podcast from several months ago, I heard a focus on two primary concerns:

1. Wealth by level;

2. Table bullying/players forced to play out of tier.

Solving #1 does not necessarily solve #2. When the APL dictates the table play up, you may have a level 1 who is forced to play up and it has nothing to do with social pressure. As such, the original solution for #1 seemed to aggravate the advent of #2.

In the City of Heroes MMO, the designers recognized the situation where a new player was joining because of a friend who had been playing. To solve the issues that arose when two friends joined up at different levels, they introduced a mechanic called sidekicking. This worked going up or down in level difference. Essentially what the game did was increase or reduce your character's effectiveness (hps, damage, defense, etc) to the appropriate level. Obviously it wasn't a perfect scaling, but it was close enough to make the game playable going up or down.

It sounds like some of this will be introduced. Naturally the proof is in the pudding. The details on how this is implemented will go along way to deciding how well it works. But one major difference in CoH was that your characters don't permanently die.

It's a fact that a human's ability to enjoy something is a matter of perspective. My enjoyment is lessened when I feel that I've missed out on opportunities to play up and yet I see many others are availing themselves of that option. While it may have no direct impact on me, my game is less enjoyable when I know that some people have 60% more wealth than I do. Most players want more gold to buy more cool stuff. If it's true for one player, it's true for others.

If I put on my game designer hat, it's also a fact, excess resources can trivialize the game. When a game becomes trivial, people stop enjoying it and stop playing it. That means lost revenue for Paizo. While there are some players who realize this intuitively and avoid optimizing their characters, most people will not. More to the point, an RPG cannot survive if it requires the majority of players to self-nerf to enjoy the game.

There is a large contingent of players who want an RPG to require the best that the player can muster, not only as individuals, but as a team. MMO's are filled with these types of players and they represent large amounts of revenue. The very fact that Season 4 is perceived to be harder suggests that PFS realizes that easy-mode is lost-revenue mode. So PFS has to have some way to keep the game challenging. The easiest way to do that is to limit the range of effectiveness of the characters. Ergo, limiting the resources is one valid way to accomplish this.

So yeah, if some characters are at 160k and others are at 90k, that's a problem that causes cascade failure. I don't blame PFS for trying to fix that.

Aa an aside, I empathize with trollbill. If you have table whose characters are in the APL gap, and five of them want to play up, I'm at a loss to understand the logic that 1 person should veto 5 others. That's the tail wagging the dog.

Spoiler:

While PFS doesn't believe in turning away players, the odd-player out always has a choice of accepting the risk or sitting out (can't they also play a pre-gen?). Personally, I would feel like I was crossing the "don't be e jerk" line if I were the 1 player and I forced everyone to play down. Tyranny of the minority is still tyranny. In that situation, I would graciously withdraw.

Arguing that the risk of death trumps all other concerns is a non-starter because the risk of death is not eliminated by playing down for that one player.

If you have a table with an APL that is clearly in the higher tier, then that 1 person shouldn't have any say in what is played other than electing to not play, am I correct?

[TriOmegaZero]

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

[trollbill]

Andrew Christian wrote:

If majority gets to decide, will they pay for the minorities death? Or is them forcing him to play up still his responsibility?

And if the minority gets to decide, when I die 10 mods down the road because constantly being forced to play down makes my WBL well below average will the minority pay for my death? Yes, I know that isn't as likely to happen, but the point is the same.

Again, to be clear, my arguments do not apply to situations where the APL should clearly dictate what tier the party plays. It only applies to borderline situations. In borderline situations, the increased risk should not be substantial.

And, for the record, I usually advocate the party pooling its wealth to pay for raise deads.

And, also for the record, I am not advocating for the people to play up (or down) to get their way. I am advocating for the method that makes the most people happy.

What I see are people claiming that they want to stop bullying, but in reality all they are doing is changing who gets to be the bully. To quote Pete Townsend, "Here comes the knew boss, same as the old boss."

[Gnasher]

Personally, this change wont have much of an effect on my group. We tend to play up just for the challenge of it, and the extra gold is really just gravy, not something required. We're looking forward to taking on the hard mode Waking Rune, so a team of us are working together to get there.

Now, in a con situation, or one where we are grouped with other PFS players because we either want a break, or just want to try something new for a bit, playing up or down based on unanimous table vote is always supported.

I've played down when only one guy didn't want to play up. Really, one person's fun is not ever worth sacrificing because I want to pew pew more. I'd rather they have a good time and come back to grow the region in organized play.

[trollbill]

Deanoth wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill. It might help if you not look at it as a form of dictation from the minority but rather a means to try and make people happy (including both the minorty and majority). Everyone involved.

I am looking at it that way. That is why majority rules works. Minority rules does not make everyone happy.

How is "Majority Rules" going to make everyone happy if "Minority rules" does not make everyone happy?

It doesn't. It makes the most people happy rather than the least. I don't understand why this concept seems so hard to grasp.

[N N 959]

trollbill wrote:

It doesn't. It makes the most people happy rather than the least. I don't understand why this concept seems so hard to grasp.

Let me offer some insight TB. It's been documented in psychology studies that people value losses higher than gains. It's a disconnect in human reasoning. So in this case, people are devaluing the enjoyment gained by five players and overvaluing the negative experience (uncertainty of survival) of one player. This perspective you're confused by is even more puzzling when the risk vs reward is highly weighted towards the one player playing up. If that one player plays up and survives, s/he stands to gain a significant increase in wealth. If everyone plays down, five players miss out on their level appropriate rewards.

I also think that culturally, the US tends to place more value on the minority segment than the majority. There is an ingrained concern with oppression and a reaction against things that feel like they are oppressing a minority voice. The US puts more emphasis on the individual's freedoms than on the majority's. There's a natural aversion to a majority deciding the fate of individuals in the US.

[trollbill]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

I think this is a symptom of a Prestige system that allows players to rez themselves without gold expenditure but only allows other players to chip in gold for a rez.

[trollbill]

N N 959 wrote:

I also think that culturally, the US tends to place more value on the minority segment than the majority. There is an ingrained concern with oppression and a reaction against things that feel like they are oppressing a minority voice. The US puts more emphasis on the individual's freedoms than on the majority's. There's a natural aversion to a majority deciding the fate of individuals in the US.

Ironic, considering we are a Democracy.

[Jack-of-Blades]

trollbill wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

I think this is a symptom of a Prestige system that allows players to rez themselves without gold expenditure but only allows other players to chip in gold for a rez.

And when you only have 6 prestige available as a level 3 character and are stuck playing tier 6-7 with people that refuse to help after they leave you to be slaughtered, you're just SOL with a dead and gone character.

I totally understand that there's not going to be a "perfect" solution to the play up/play down dilemma in the immediate future, but I think this adjustment is taking a step in the right direction.

[pathar]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

[thejeff]

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

[N N 959]

pathar wrote:

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

So if I "demand" that you rez SCPRedMage, does he get the rez or is he boned?

:)

[pathar]

thejeff wrote:

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

Well no, but that's because I consider that a dick move and don't do that in the first place.

[FanaticRat]

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Do people even have money like that at lower levels?

[Deanoth]

N N 959 wrote:

trollbill wrote:

It doesn't. It makes the most people happy rather than the least. I don't understand why this concept seems so hard to grasp.

Let me offer some insight TB. It's been documented in psychology studies that people value losses higher than gains. It's a disconnect in human reasoning. So in this case, people are devaluing the enjoyment gained by five players and overvaluing the negative experience (uncertainty of survival) of one player. This perspective you're confused by is even more puzzling when the risk vs reward is highly weighted towards the one player playing up. If that one player plays up and survives, s/he stands to gain a significant increase in wealth. If everyone plays down, five players miss out on their level appropriate rewards.

I also think that culturally, the US tends to place more value on the minority segment than the majority. There is an ingrained concern with oppression and a reaction against things that feel like they are oppressing a minority voice. The US puts more emphasis on the individual's freedoms than on the majority's. There's a natural aversion to a majority deciding the fate of individuals in the US.

Trollbill and you are missing the point. This whole entire thread is not about whether or not there a greater reward for playing up vs playing down and getting less because you get paid less. This is about MINIMIZING the fact that if 5 people play down that they will still get more then the person that is actually IN the tier while playing. If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

[trollbill]

FanaticRat wrote:

Do people even have money like that at lower levels?

At levels 1 - 2 no, but starting a new character at that point is not a major loss.

At tiers 3-4 and up, a party of 5 players should get enough gold from the adventure to pay for a Raise Dead.

[Deanoth]

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

So there is a group of players.. 4,4,5,5,5,2 and the lvl 2 is forced to play up, dies because of a mistake and they are attacked from behind. and he got critted. Now.. if he wanted to be raised.. he is responsible and the group does not have to worry about him. After all it is a deadly game after all and us Pathfinders throw ourselves in to our work because we make a deadly living?

I am certainly GLAD that the Play-Up rule is being implemented if there are still groups out there like this. :(

[Madclaw]

So, I've been out of PFS for a while due to moving and there not being anything in my area. Recently that has changed and I've become aware of this new rule going to be taking effect. After search it seems that there are two problems that this is trying to address.

1) Tables in tier gaps bullying other players to play up due to gold 2) People feeling modules have been cake walks and want more difficulty. Season 4 has apparently kicked hard mode on but people were still saying not hard enough. So staff, Mike and others, looked into the problem. They saw many people had above WBL for PFS and when you have more resources things are easier.

TL:DR 1) Table bullying for playing up. 2) Scenario difficulty marginalized due to above average resources.

So to stem the tide of complaints about ease of scenarios they're trying to limit resources and make things harder. I don't think that limiting the gold you get for playing up is going to change the bullying going on. A bonus to playing down might help, but if this bullying is as bad is people are saying it is, because they want 'teh lootz' then, this is going to ameliorate the problem. A bonus for playing out of tier might help, but I don't think it's going to reduce it a much. As for the bonus for playing down I think it's going to help reduce it, maybe, but the argument from these people are going to be, 'it's not as much gold.' So, I don't feel it's going to help solve the bullying problem. But from the look of it it may help fix various players having above average WBL for PFS. I enjoy playing up for the challenge. But I will admit that sometimes part of my factoring in for playing up is the increased gold. It is a tempting incentive. Honestly, I think this factors in with everyone on at least some level. You have to ask yourself, 'is it worth the risk for the extra stuff.' But my main thought is 'will my character die?' I'm one of those people who gets attached to their character and when I play I try to be my character. So, when I finish a particularly difficult fight or scenario due to playing up and I see the gold reward it's a nice addition of gravy to my already generous playing meal. Suffice to say I am disappointed that playing up will have less gravy for me in the form of reduced wealth.

personal anecdotal evidence worth a grain of salt:

As someone who has been playing for 3 years and then off for about a year, I have issue with this. I've never really encountered the playing up bullying that others are offering up. But this could be due to the fact that the group that I played with had roughly 15 regular players and we all had about the same amount of characters. Further we always tried to schedule two tables, generally one high and one low. Thus, we were generally prepared. That's not to say some discussions at table whether to play up or not didn't happen. In fact it did. And there were sometimes where I or others felt apprehensive about playing up with a character. But what happened was never bullying. To assuage this though, other players at the table helped those lower level characters playing up. We all had a vested interest in keeping that character alive. Both in character and out of character. If that PC died and couldn't play, then they may very well be unable to play mods and thus we wouldn't see the player for awhile, until another of his characters could play an available mod. Now, at the time we were always playing the newest mods and this was around late season 1 into season 2. We played older mods earlier in the day and played the newest ones at night. This helped people catch up and thus generate group fun. Now, I would say we had above average group due in part to our organizing, player base, and availability of facilities. Not all groups have this, of course. In short, I've never really been bullied to play up. But I will add though as a side note, just because you have more resources doesn't mean you're going to trounce a scenario.

[Deanoth]

pathar wrote:

thejeff wrote:

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

Well no, but that's because I consider that a dick move and don't do that in the first place.

But it HAPPENS all the time!!!

[Chris Mortika]

Deanoth wrote:

So there is a group of players.. 4,4,5,5,5,2 and the lvl 2 is forced to play up, dies because of a mistake and they are attacked from behind. and he got critted.

Just as an aside. In a Tier 1-5, the party doesn't get a choice. That's an average of 4.17, and they're playing up. (In Seasons 0 - 3, it would be an APL of 5.17)

So, let's say we've got a party of {4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2}
Situation 1: Everybody except the Level 2 Witch wants to play up.

Situation 2: Everybody except the Level 4 Ranger wants to play up.

[Madclaw]

Deanoth wrote:

pathar wrote:

thejeff wrote:

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

Well no, but that's because I consider that a dick move and don't do that in the first place.

But it HAPPENS all the time!!!

Happens all the time? If this is the case then GM's need to be enforcing Rule 1 of Society play. Or, the player needs to learn to walk away. I hate to say that. But sometimes life isn't fair. I will fully admit if people are brow-beating others into playing up something needs to change. But it's the group that needs to change. Sometimes, you need to find a new group. Yes, sometimes the one group of @%^-hats is the only available option and that really sucks. Trust me, I know about limited to no options. But passing a rule reducing wealth for playing up isn't going to ameliorate this.

[pathar]

Deanoth wrote:

But it HAPPENS all the time!!!

It wasn't a stipulated condition of the question to which I was responding.

[Deanoth]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

So there is a group of players.. 4,4,5,5,5,2 and the lvl 2 is forced to play up, dies because of a mistake and they are attacked from behind. and he got critted.

Just as an aside. In a Tier 1-5, the party doesn't get a choice. That's an average of 4.17, and they're playing up. (In Seasons 0 - 3, it would be an APL of 5.17)

So, let's say we've got a party of {4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2}
Situation 1: Everybody except the Level 2 Witch wants to play up.

Situation 2: Everybody except the Level 4 Ranger wants to play up.

Earse party level make-up I said and sub Chris's party make-up :)

hehe Thanks Chris!! :)

[trollbill]

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

[Madclaw]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

So there is a group of players.. 4,4,5,5,5,2 and the lvl 2 is forced to play up, dies because of a mistake and they are attacked from behind. and he got critted.

Just as an aside. In a Tier 1-5, the party doesn't get a choice. That's an average of 4.17, and they're playing up. (In Seasons 0 - 3, it would be an APL of 5.17)

So, let's say we've got a party of {4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2}
Situation 1: Everybody except the Level 2 Witch wants to play up.

Situation 2: Everybody except the Level 4 Ranger wants to play up.

If this kind of thing happens and the above people are fairly adamant then maybe someone needs to walk away from the table. If they miss the mod then they miss it. More than likely there will be a chance to play the mod again. If not, and I really hate saying this I really do, sometimes that's the breaks and they miss out on a mod.

[Madclaw]

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

Agreed, both sides are guilty of imposing on the other.

[Deanoth]

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

Trollbill. Think about this for a moment. The act of forcing people to play-up is a form of bullying. Brow beating and making them feel guilty is bullying and what I am talking about. The person that does not want to play up is NOT forcing the 5 to play down by saying no I would rather not play-up. Especially if they had a bad experience previously because of it. The consequences are greater for the person playing up then they are for the ones playing down. Regardless.. this is all neither here nor there. It is a problem either way!! Playing up OR down is the problems here Trollbill and my exact point. This is the problem Mike is trying to make better!!!

[trollbill]

Deanoth wrote:

pathar wrote:

thejeff wrote:

pathar wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

If someone dies from stupid, I'm not going to help them get out of it unless I think that stupid is not their typical state.

If someone dies legitimately, I might be willing to chip in. If they need it--after selling off equipment. Not all their equipment, of course, but at least an item or two. Why? Because much like a healing wand, I consider having a stash of funds to come back from the dead to be an essential thing that each Pathfinder should bring to the table on their own behalf. Because the characters make a living of going out and getting hurt a lot, and therefore might die and it's friggin' insane to not prepare for that.

One final note: If they demand help, they're on their own.

Does that include if they were clearly out of their league, wanted to play down and you helped outvote them so they had to play up and died?

Well no, but that's because I consider that a dick move and don't do that in the first place.

But it HAPPENS all the time!!!

Then clearly you are dealing with a much bigger group of jerks than I do. While I have seen a few instances of people being coerced into playing up, I haven't seen an instance that I can recall of someone being killed and left for dead by their comrades because of it.

The question is, which of our two experiences more closely represents the norm.

[Madclaw]

Deanoth wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

Trollbill. Think about this for a moment. The act of forcing people to play-up is a form of bullying. Brow beating and making them feel guilty is bullying and what I am talking about. The person that does not want to play up is NOT forcing the 5 to play down by saying no I would rather not play-up. Especially if they had a bad experience previously because of it. The consequences are greater for the person playing up then they are for the ones playing down. Regardless.. this is all neither here nor there. It is a problem either way!! Playing up OR down is the problems here Trollbill and my exact point. This is the problem Mike is trying to make better!!!

I believe TB is trying to point out the fact that you previously stated that if said situation was present you'd make those players who wanted to play up cater to the one person who wanted to play down. This is bullying of the same degree as you've stated.

[Chad Newman]

I think in the end it is all about maturity and respect for your fellow gamer. If you are sitting at a table of six and all but one of them wants to play up, the bigger man would agree to the group's desire and either play or step away from the table to allow them to do so. But, having said that, what group of friends would do that to a fellow player? Hopefully none that I know.

What is sad is if that means the sixth player doesn't get to play.

So ask yourself, is making some extra gold worth alienating a player at a game night? Is that in the spirit of PFS? If you answered yes you are playing for the wrong reason.

In the end there is no winner in these situations. Someone is going to walk away with a bad taste in their mouth. I think the idea of bonus gold for playing down is a good start, just as I think bonus gold for playing up is as well. But the bigger problem lies in the whole system of multiple tiers within an adventure. It solves a problem (not enough scenarios to play in) but creates another.

[Deanoth]

Trollbill,

Even if it happens one time in any venue. Imagine if that was what the person at the table see's and then tells his friends that PFS sucks because of what happened. Now they in turn relay that same story to other people and so on and so on. Now there are a bunch of people that dislike PFS because of one bad experience at one table.

Word of mouth is what this organization is all about. So regardless of what is the "norm" is irrelevant. The goal here is to try and alleviate the problem by minimizing the so called penalty of playing down for the 5 people that are above the level. Instead of "forcing" someone to play up.

This is not about minority and majority or if it is fair or not. It is about trying to make the problem less then what it could be!

[Deanoth]

Madclaw wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

Trollbill. Think about this for a moment. The act of forcing people to play-up is a form of bullying. Brow beating and making them feel guilty is bullying and what I am talking about. The person that does not want to play up is NOT forcing the 5 to play down by saying no I would rather not play-up. Especially if they had a bad experience previously because of it. The consequences are greater for the person playing up then they are for the ones playing down. Regardless.. this is all neither here nor there. It is a problem either way!! Playing up OR down is the problems here Trollbill and my exact point. This is the problem Mike is trying to make better!!!

I did not say I would MAKE them.. but I would do my best to make it so that everyone is HAPPY! I most certainly would not allow anyone to bully anyone either way. That is not the kind of GM I am.. nor the kind of Coordinator for events I am. But everyone would have to be ok with playing up.. or I would make it so that the person that chose not to play up would be able to play at another table. While I did not say this in the original posting. It is what was meant.

I believe TB is trying to point out the fact that you previously stated that if said situation was present you'd make those players who wanted to play up cater to the one person who wanted to play down. This is bullying of the same degree as you've stated.

[Madclaw]

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill,

Even if it happens one time in any venue. Imagine if that was what the person at the table see's and then tells his friends that PFS sucks because of what happened. Now they in turn relay that same story to other people and so on and so on. Now there are a bunch of people that dislike PFS because of one bad experience at one table.

Word of mouth is what this organization is all about. So regardless of what is the "norm" is irrelevant. The goal here is to try and alleviate the problem by minimizing the so called penalty of playing down for the 5 people that are above the level. Instead of "forcing" someone to play up.

This is not about minority and majority or if it is fair or not. It is about trying to make the problem less then what it could be!

I don't think anyone has any problem with the playing down and getting extra gold, that's great IMHO. It's the 'I'm out of tier and playing up but getting getting less gold than everyone else but incurred the same amount of risk,' that's getting people's jimmys rustled.

[rknop]

James Risner wrote:

The only true fix is to do away with tiers and make each module one tier (3-5, 4-6, 5-7, etc) One gold award, one tier. Everyone is happy.

...except that they're already at the limit with the number of scenarios they can produce. This would cut in half the number of scenarios available at any given level. No, it doesn't cut in half the number of scenarios overall, so if you plan carefully, you're fine. But it would make it harder to fill up any given scenario, because half as many characters can legally play it as could have previously.

[Deanoth]

We do not the actual rule on how that is going to work yet other then a kind of vague reporting from a lovely young lady by the name of Lady Opheilia :) (no offense on the reporting or vagueness). But until the actual guide comes on next Monday. We will not know what the rule is per se. I would love to debate this though further until then hehe :) But seriously.

I do not like it having anyone being unhappy and it is going to happen regardless of my feelings or anyone else. It is a sad thing and it happens. But that being said we can't eliminate the tier system. We can't remove the problem. We CAN lessen the effects of said problem (or at least try which is what Mike Brock is trying to do along with the PFS team). Putting more scenarios out might not be a bad thing either considering the growth of PFS. That and the growth of the events in local areas.

It is inevitable that people will play out of the amount of scenarios fairly fast at the current rate. Even in my local area it is happening. I am still excited to see the new rules though. :)

[rknop]

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill. It might help if you not look at it as a form of dictation from the minority but rather a means to try and make people happy (including both the minorty and majority). Everyone involved.

I am looking at it that way. That is why majority rules works. Minority rules does not make everyone happy.

It's not a symmetric situation.

If you play down, some people may not feel challenged, and may not get as big of a gold payout.

If you play up, some people may be in over their head, with a greatly increased chance of their character dying.

The consequences faced by going one direction or the other are not equal. As such, simple "majority rules" can, in fact, be de facto bullying.

[rknop]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What the hell is wrong with people that they don't chip in on rezzing a fellow Pathfinder?

They are powergamers who want to play up to get more money. Of course they're not going to give up some of their money to raise somebody else. What's more, they probably see the guy as somebody not contributing because he was too low level and might even have been one of that "terrible" minority that wanted to hold the majority back by not playing up....

[Madclaw]

rknop wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill. It might help if you not look at it as a form of dictation from the minority but rather a means to try and make people happy (including both the minorty and majority). Everyone involved.

I am looking at it that way. That is why majority rules works. Minority rules does not make everyone happy.

It's not a symmetric situation.

If you play down, some people may not feel challenged, and may not get as big of a gold payout.

If you play up, some people may be in over their head, with a greatly increased chance of their character dying.

The consequences faced by going one direction or the other are not equal. As such, simple "majority rules" can, in fact, be de facto bullying.

So, is the US election system bullying? Sorry, couldn't help myself. This is going to happen. It's the most reasonable way to deal with the problem. Come to a consensus and decide as a group. If you get out voted, then try and join/get a table made that's playing the tier you'd prefer. This of course isn't always going to happen and you may have to walk away. Trying to make everyone happy usually ends up with no one being happy.

[trollbill]

Madclaw wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

If the 5 play up and force the other to do so.. then it will be a form of bullying. So you as a group are not going to be left out for being friendly for the one person unable to truly not play-up.

There are more reasons than just gold for people to not want to play down. You are claiming it is bullying for 5 people to force 1 to play up, yet for reasons that escape all sense of logic, it is not bullying for one person to force 5 others play down. Bullying is bullying.

Trollbill. Think about this for a moment. The act of forcing people to play-up is a form of bullying. Brow beating and making them feel guilty is bullying and what I am talking about. The person that does not want to play up is NOT forcing the 5 to play down by saying no I would rather not play-up. Especially if they had a bad experience previously because of it. The consequences are greater for the person playing up then they are for the ones playing down. Regardless.. this is all neither here nor there. It is a problem either way!! Playing up OR down is the problems here Trollbill and my exact point. This is the problem Mike is trying to make better!!!

I believe TB is trying to point out the fact that you previously stated that if said situation was present you'd make those players who wanted to play up cater to the one person who wanted to play down. This is bullying of the same degree as you've stated.

What he said.

[Deanoth]

TB. You are not obviously not seeing my point.. as I have stated in other postings many times. I know I am saying playing up and down is a problem and have said so in many of my postings. I have ALSO said that it is the problem MM&J are trying to alleviate by the rule they are going to be implementing so that it "lessens' the penalty of playing down by the 5 and not "force" the deadly consequences on the one that mnight have had to play-up.

[Jack-of-Blades]

Alright folks, simmer down. There's no need to be getting all bent out of shape and just arguing back and forth at one another.

The best thing you can do for yourself, your fellow players, campaign staff, and Paizo is to offer suggestions of how to help fix the problems rather than just sniping back and forth complaining about how it's all wrong and needs to be fixed/not messed with/whatever.

Madclaw wrote:

I don't think anyone has any problem with the playing down and getting extra gold, that's great IMHO. It's the 'I'm out of tier and playing up but getting getting less gold than everyone else but incurred the same amount of risk,' that's getting people's jimmys rustled.

I agree, this is probably the big reason people are getting their knickers in a twist because now they can't reap all the same rewards for the higher challenge.

Really, I see the people that will be the hardest hit by this new ruling being the store and event coordinators. While players certainly have their two coppers to throw about on the topic of playing up or down, the goal of the tiers/subtiers is to get people to play in the closest to correct range for their character. The hope is that one never has to play out of tier, putting their WBL right on track for what it should be.

As it is, coordinators muster tables based on levels and who's played what. Now they're going to have to pay a bit more attention to just what the levels are of the characters they're grouping up; essentially trying to keep everyone within the same subtier. It won't always work, as experience has shown, and every now and then, someone's going to be out of tier. This new ruling will help to alleviate the stress on those characters that are stuck playing out of tier, whether by choice or not, in that there is both a reward for taking on a greater challenge and a reward for helping out your lower level friends.

This change really isn't going to stop any of the bullying already present in the places it crops up in, but it will help to throttle back some of the ways that some cheese monkeys are using to game the system.

[trollbill]

Deanoth wrote:

TB. You are not obviously not seeing my point.. as I have stated in other postings many times. I know I am saying playing up and down is a problem and have said so in many of my postings. I have ALSO said that it is the problem MM&J are trying to alleviate by the rule they are going to be implementing so that it "lessens' the penalty of playing down by the 5 and not "force" the deadly consequences on the one that mnight have had to play-up.

Sorry, I deleted my last post after realizing there was some confusion over what we were actually arguing about.

[Deanoth]

Madclaw wrote:

rknop wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill. It might help if you not look at it as a form of dictation from the minority but rather a means to try and make people happy (including both the minorty and majority). Everyone involved.

I am looking at it that way. That is why majority rules works. Minority rules does not make everyone happy.

It's not a symmetric situation.

If you play down, some people may not feel challenged, and may not get as big of a gold payout.

If you play up, some people may be in over their head, with a greatly increased chance of their character dying.

The consequences faced by going one direction or the other are not equal. As such, simple "majority rules" can, in fact, be de facto bullying.

So, is the US election system bullying? Sorry, couldn't help myself. This is going to happen. It's the most reasonable way to deal with the problem. Come to a consensus and decide as a group. If you get out voted, then try and join/get a table made that's playing the tier you'd prefer.

The Justice System does this already. One hold out on a jury is enough to prevent a person from going to jail. It is better then 100 guilty men go free then one innocent man go to prison.

So yes it is actually part of our government already in many ways. It is not always good to be a majority. It can even happen with the Congress/Senate. Hence the term filibustering.

[Deanoth]

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

TB. You are not obviously not seeing my point.. as I have stated in other postings many times. I know I am saying playing up and down is a problem and have said so in many of my postings. I have ALSO said that it is the problem MM&J are trying to alleviate by the rule they are going to be implementing so that it "lessens' the penalty of playing down by the 5 and not "force" the deadly consequences on the one that mnight have had to play-up.

Sorry, I deleted my last post after realizing there was some confusion over what we were actually arguing about.

No worries :)

[rknop]

Madclaw wrote:

rknop wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill. It might help if you not look at it as a form of dictation from the minority but rather a means to try and make people happy (including both the minorty and majority). Everyone involved.

I am looking at it that way. That is why majority rules works. Minority rules does not make everyone happy.

It's not a symmetric situation.

If you play down, some people may not feel challenged, and may not get as big of a gold payout.

If you play up, some people may be in over their head, with a greatly increased chance of their character dying.

The consequences faced by going one direction or the other are not equal. As such, simple "majority rules" can, in fact, be de facto bullying.

So, is the US election system bullying?

Utterly irrelevant.

Choosing one candidate for President vs. another candidate is a symmetric situation.

Choosing to make one set of people take excessive risks versus choosing to make another set of people receive reduced rewards is not a symmetric sistuation.

You completely and totally and utterly missed the point of what I said. You responded as if I had simply said "majority rules is bullying". That's not what I said. I said that given the asymmetry of the situation, it can be. It doesn't have to be. But if there was somebody at the table who really didn't want to play up, and who didn't agree to a vote, but the group still voted and hid behind "it's what the majority wants, it's fair!", that is bullying, and the fair business is baloney.

[trollbill]

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill,

Even if it happens one time in any venue. Imagine if that was what the person at the table see's and then tells his friends that PFS sucks because of what happened. Now they in turn relay that same story to other people and so on and so on. Now there are a bunch of people that dislike PFS because of one bad experience at one table.

Word of mouth is what this organization is all about. So regardless of what is the "norm" is irrelevant. The goal here is to try and alleviate the problem by minimizing the so called penalty of playing down for the 5 people that are above the level. Instead of "forcing" someone to play up.

This is not about minority and majority or if it is fair or not. It is about trying to make the problem less then what it could be!

And if 5 people have a bad time instead of one, how will that effect word of mouth?

[Madclaw]

Jack-of-Blades wrote:

Alright folks, simmer down. There's no need to be getting all bent out of shape and just arguing back and forth at one another.

The best thing you can do for yourself, your fellow players, campaign staff, and Paizo is to offer suggestions of how to help fix the problems rather than just sniping back and forth complaining about how it's all wrong and needs to be fixed/not messed with/whatever.

Agreed. This is getting a little heated and we need to throttle things back.

Jack-of-Blades wrote:

Madclaw wrote:

I don't think anyone has any problem with the playing down and getting extra gold, that's great IMHO. It's the 'I'm out of tier and playing up but getting getting less gold than everyone else but incurred the same amount of risk,' that's getting people's jimmys rustled.

I agree, this is probably the big reason people are getting their knickers in a twist because now they can't reap all the same rewards for the higher challenge.

Really, I see the people that will be the hardest hit by this new ruling being the store and event coordinators. While players certainly have their two coppers to throw about on the topic of playing up or down, the goal of the tiers/subtiers is to get people to play in the closest to correct range for their character. The hope is that one never has to play out of tier, putting their WBL right on track for what it should be.

As it is, coordinators muster tables based on levels and who's played what. Now they're going to have to pay a bit more attention to just what the levels are of the characters they're grouping up; essentially trying to keep everyone within the same subtier. It won't always work, as experience has shown, and every now and then, someone's going to be out of tier. This new ruling will help to alleviate the stress on those characters that are stuck playing out of tier, whether by choice or not, in that there is both a reward for taking on a greater challenge and a reward for helping out your lower level friends.

This change really isn't going to stop any of the bullying already present in the places it crops up in, but it will...

I agree. As stated I enjoy playing up and enjoy the rewards (challenge and treasure) for such. My complaint and many others, is this reduced gold for playing Out and Up (totally coining that phrase as it relates to this). But I'm not sure it's going to fix the problem. Those that game the system to gain more gold are going to find ways to game the system anyways. It's the problem about reactive changes made to things. Those that are truly concerned with gaming the system are going to find a way. Simple as that. Thus, I don't see the need to reduce the reward to those who just enjoy playing up.

[Mistwalker]

Deanoth wrote:

Trollbill,

Even if it happens one time in any venue. Imagine if that was what the person at the table see's and then tells his friends that PFS sucks because of what happened. Now they in turn relay that same story to other people and so on and so on. Now there are a bunch of people that dislike PFS because of one bad experience at one table.

Word of mouth is what this organization is all about. So regardless of what is the "norm" is irrelevant. The goal here is to try and alleviate the problem by minimizing the so called penalty of playing down for the 5 people that are above the level. Instead of "forcing" someone to play up.

This is not about minority and majority or if it is fair or not. It is about trying to make the problem less then what it could be!

Wouldn't the opposite be true, but at a larger scale?

5 players decide that PFS sucks if one person can force them to play down, stop playing tell their friends, etc...

As for the single play up character, wouldn't the tactics of the GM come into play for how fast they died? Couldn't the NPCs make a perception check to notice that the guy left all alone up front is very nervous, while the ones that moved to the back are a bigger threat and focus most of their attacks on the bigger threat (like how 5th level PCs will often ignore goblins to attack the troll or mage in the back rank)? I believe that it was Kyle that said that the biggest thing that influences a table is the GM.

I am also wondering if there isn't something that can be done by Paizo to help with part of the "we will protect you and help pay for a rezzing if you die by playing up with us" promise to entice folks to play up - that is, to have a rule that would allow the GM the option of automatically deducting the said gold if such a promise were made?

I too find that the idea that one person can trump the other 5 to be a bit abusive, to be a form of bullying.