Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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To Tonya, Alex, Linda, and a bunch of others that I know I have missed, PLEASE add back XP and Gold tracking (Beginning and Ending) to the chronicles!!!
These are VITALLY IMPORTANT information for tracking a character's progress.
Please "add as a favorite" my post if you agree that the tracking boxes should be on the chronicles.
And of course, respectful discussion is encouraged.
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I would prefer to see starting/ending values added back, as explicitly optional fields, as a recommended/example tool for players to track their values -- even if we're allowed to use alternate tools if we wish.
I do not want them to be required fields that GMs must review/sign-off on/fill-out in the online setting.
Ie, a change of official policy rather than a change of chronicle format would have been the cleaner solution, and still would have allowed/authorized the alternate tracking systems some people wanted.
Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver
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I very much prefer to track my gold and XP on my physical chronicle sheets. I am one of those few that rarely uses a computer. In fact, I don't even own one. For 40 years, I've preferred "Pencil & paper" format with my RPGs.
PLEASE! add back XP and Gold tracking (Beginning and Ending) to the chronicles!
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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(Reposting from a different thread)
At this point the chronicle sheets are meaningless. It's just a paper note saying the person represented by this PFS# played X character in Y scenario, earned Z XP and A money as verified by B GM on C date. Might as well just have it all online and skip the paper copy at this point.
I do not mind having a physical chronicle sheet, but at least put the GP and XP tracking boxes back in. We do not have to have the GM track them. Just put those boxes back for those who do not want to use a spreadsheet and want a physical copy to work with rather than see it all tracked on the Paizo or OP website.
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I started drafting up a design before realizing I should probably first see if anyone was interested in the idea:
How do people feel about a single Chronicle Sheet design with 6 horizontal "strips" for each of the players, followed below by a similar "strip" for the GM?
There is enough room for character information and tracking for Reputation, XP, GP and even a notes section.
Tonya has stated that she wishes to move away from paper, but there exists a non-zero population of players who are against that idea. I think the best middle ground would be to shrink the number of pages required per game down to 1.
This works for both in-person and online:
If you're GMing online, you simply fill out each strip with the same information as you would have done on multiple sheets previously. You can share that one document with everyone who played, rather than creating half a dozen different files, and each player simply uses the strip that pertains to their character.
If you're GMing in person, this Chronicle format actually doubles as a sign-in sheet. The sheet has no section for items or boons, because that's all available online. After you've filled out the various rewards, you can either tear or cut between the strips and distribute them accordingly.
Thoughts?
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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The challenge with the idea is that there would a lot of unused/useless information. I don't really care about the other players or GM stats. I only care about my character stats.
And now we have small slips of paper instead of a single sheet.
Not a fan. I like this idea less than where we are at now.
For a closed group, this would likely work well but with the mobility of organized play, I just don't see an upside.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I am intrigued by the idea of a more horizontal design.
The current chronicle designs all have horizontal form elements (at the top and bottom) and vertical (on the right).
Meanwhile, most peoples' sign-up forms are spreadsheets, usually with one player per row. Sometimes one player per column. But nowhere is it mixed between vertical and horizontal.
Going fully horizontal would mean one row on the chronicle with XP gained, gold gained, and maybe rep gained with your main faction. (You could have rows above and below it with before/after numbers).
The really nice thing about this is that you can then quite easily fill in chronicle sheets from a spreadsheet by just copy-pasting lines - like we can already do for the top and bottom rows. Copy-pasting a column is just much fussier. So let's turn the column into a row.
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Had a long answer, but paizo ate it.
Short version:
Take the topline/bottom line from season 2. Splicing in the season 1 reputation tracker into the season 2 topline.
All the rest from season 1 (removing fame of course). Call it done.
Update the guide to say GMs aren't responsible for signing off on starting/ending values.
I don't care too much about landscape versus portrait. I wouldn't want other players/GMs character information on my sheets though. (Ie the chronicles = sign-in sheet approach feels awkward/messy to me)
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I don't want my information on other peoples' sheets, so I'm pretty opposed to the One Sheet To Rule Them All idea.
I think the idea would be a campaign journal. If you're in meatspace you'd hand it to the dm and they'd sign it
Online I'd just copy paste it and you could put it to a PDF of your journal as a stamp
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Personally, I think before we can decide what should be on the chronicle, we have to define what we want the sheet to do. For example, if the org play leadership wants to reduce the necessity of printed paper (whether we all agree or not is a separate issue) then they need to consider eliminating the chronicle sheets. if OTOH, they want chronicles to be the official tracking form for character progression, then they need to return to a sheet similar to the one we used just prior to the change. Maybe we can tweak it to be more useful, but how do we know how to design the sheet if we don’t know what it’s purpose is? Until we know, all this hypothesizing is superfluous.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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I don't want my information on other peoples' sheets, so I'm pretty opposed to the One Sheet To Rule Them All idea.I think the idea would be a campaign journal. If you're in meatspace you'd hand it to the dm and they'd sign it
Online I'd just copy paste it and you could put it to a PDF of your journal as a stamp
That could work well. One piece of paper with pertinent info on it for the player signed by the GM for live games. Players could keep track of all kinds of things that way including item, boon, and AcP purchases. Just need to have space to write various things in the lines. I would suggest a landscape layout with 10ish? session entries. Have a header with PFS2 logo, character and player names, PFS and character #.
The lines would have columns for XP, slotted faction, rep gained, bonus faction and rep if any gained, GP gained, earned income if we want to track it separately from GP gained, space for purchases, and maybe even a space to track AcP gained.
Follow that line with a totals line.
For online use the stamp. For those it is really a tracking tool.
Put a carryover line at the top for when you are carrying over from one sheet to another. That way you only need one sheet instead of a Sheet One, and succeeding sheets.
Could have some room for notes too or have a space for that on the back where people are directed to in the original line.
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I started drafting up a design before realizing I should probably first see if anyone was interested in the idea:
How do people feel about a single Chronicle Sheet design with 6 horizontal "strips" for each of the players, followed below by a similar "strip" for the GM?
There is enough room for character information and tracking for Reputation, XP, GP and even a notes section.
Tonya has stated that she wishes to move away from paper, but there exists a non-zero population of players who are against that idea. I think the best middle ground would be to shrink the number of pages required per game down to 1.
This works for both in-person and online:
If you're GMing online, you simply fill out each strip with the same information as you would have done on multiple sheets previously. You can share that one document with everyone who played, rather than creating half a dozen different files, and each player simply uses the strip that pertains to their character.
If you're GMing in person, this Chronicle format actually doubles as a sign-in sheet. The sheet has no section for items or boons, because that's all available online. After you've filled out the various rewards, you can either tear or cut between the strips and distribute them accordingly.
Thoughts?
I agree that the Chronicle Sheet is handy to have, for a few different reasons. 1) Some players don't use computers to maintain their character, 2) a player can reference it when it matters what PC's played specific scenarios, 3) players can use them to help track their advancement (since it is easy for a PC sheet to accidentally get corrupted, some players try to maintain everything in their head and stops play when they can't remember something), 4) not all GM's post when someone has played immediately after the scenario and so they can rely on the player's chronicle sheets to be a record that they played a specific scenario on a specific day, etc.
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4) not all GM's post when someone has played immediately after the scenario and so they can rely on the player's chronicle sheets to be a record that they played a specific scenario on a specific day, etc.
I know this is just a small part of your argument, but I want to point out that with improvements, this wouldn't be part of the equation.
Right now, paper Chronicles are more trustworthy than the site information because of human behavior, not because the medium is better.
If you wanted to know how much money were in your bank account right now, it would be far faster and far more accurate to log in to your bank website than to dig up a paper copy of your last statement.
On the flip side, right now, if you wanted to know how many XP your character has, it's easier to dig up a piece of paper than to trust that a game you played 2 months ago was recorded correctly and handed to a VO who then put it into a website correctly.
There's no reason that paper Chronicles should be faster and more accurate than electronic Chronicles other than operational inefficiency.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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4) not all GM's post when someone has played immediately after the scenario and so they can rely on the player's chronicle sheets to be a record that they played a specific scenario on a specific day, etc.I know this is just a small part of your argument, but I want to point out that with improvements, this wouldn't be part of the equation.
Right now, paper Chronicles are more trustworthy than the site information because of human behavior, not because the medium is better.
I don't honestly believe that human behavior will change that significantly for me to want to rely on the Paizo website to keep my character information. Combine that with the poor wifi that many conventions and game stores have, paper will still be king for a while.
I agree there have been improvements made. And with AcP, I do believe reporting is getting better. But at the end of the day I really want a physical "something" that I can quickly reference if I have the need.
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Honestly, my preference would be to just print the existing chronicle, 80% size, leaving a column down the right hand side for running tallies. In fact, if I ever do go back to paper chronicles, that is almost certainly what I will do. (The column approach allows you to stack a bunch of chronicles on top of each other, and then just slide the top one aside a little and continue the math onto the next one, and so on.)
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On the flip side, right now, if you wanted to know how many XP your character has, it's easier to dig up a piece of paper than to trust that a game you played 2 months ago was recorded correctly and handed to a VO who then put it into a website correctly.
There's no reason that paper Chronicles should be faster and more accurate than electronic Chronicles other than operational inefficiency.
In order for the website to be accurate, EVERY recorded game has to be uploaded and recorded accurately. One transposed number putting your chronicle on someone else or someone else onto your chronicle and its off for good.
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Just saying that I have never had a problem getting my records adjusted in a reasonably quick fashion. I know that’s not the experience of every player, and I’m not going to try and say what is most likely to happen, just that there is a measurable number of us who don’t have that issue. Sometimes I wish I was still an RVC so I could take care of more, especially those claiming to have been waiting months, even years for corrections.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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I think I will be doing the Sergio Arnogiaz method also. (Mad Magazine artist that did the margin cartoons in the pages and created/drew Groo)
I am confused as to why this was done in such this way, as to put only the bare minimum in the sheet and not leave any room for totals or record keeping. There is still the inventory sell and buy sections for some reason, but how much gold or exp a character has is pretty much up in the air. As I told my group the other day, I now have a million gold pieces... bwaaa ha ha ha....
Not really, though you wouldn't be able to tell it with these sheets.
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I am confused as to why this was done in such this way, as to put only the bare minimum in the sheet
It’s fairly clear this was a reaction to all the complaints coming out of convention season around having to complete the starting values on the chronicle sheet before the game and the challenges that created for many players and GMs. Rather than change the GM expectations for chronicle completion in the Guide, they chose to change the form itself.
Venture-Lieutenant, Nebraska—Bellevue
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I agree with the request to add the tracker boxes back to the form. But I have an additional request.
I just got done running 2-05, Balancing the Scales. The chronicle format is the new format. One other new change is that the item rewards are now not broken down by which tier they appear in. So it's on the GM (per the guide) to line out all the items not encountered.
Treasure Access: Items that the PCs did not encounter must be crossed off the treasure access list by the GM.
Since my players were low sub-tier, I had to go through the scenario and find each item where it was presented. In low-sub tier, I ended up lining out five of the six items on the chronicle.
It sure would make a GM's life easier if the items were listed by the tier on the chronicle.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond
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The 2 in front of the character number doesn't need to be there and I need more room for Earn Income that the GP gained provides. The 'Reputation Gained' box wastes space and the Items box should be divided by subtier.
That said, I like that there's no starting GP or XP box.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond
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It is easy to not use the starting/ending boxes if one does not want to use them. I think, and I understand I am biased, the majority of people use those boxes.
I guess it's fine as long as it's clear they are player benfit and not a GM chore.
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That's easy enough. Just change the section of the guide that describes how to complete the chronicle sheet and make it clear what the GM is responsible for. That should be much easier than redesigning an entire sheet that requires passes through all the Paizo development departments.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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It is easy to not use the starting/ending boxes if one does not want to use them. I think, and I understand I am biased, the majority of people use those boxes.I guess it's fine as long as it's clear they are player benfit and not a GM chore.
Yeah, I agree. The boxes should be for player use.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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It is easy to not use the starting/ending boxes if one does not want to use them. I think, and I understand I am biased, the majority of people use those boxes.I guess it's fine as long as it's clear they are player benfit and not a GM chore.
Not saying it is right. Alot of local GM, myself included, very rarely filled out the starting and ending of anything.
I just did the character number, faction, EXP, Gold Earned (TB), fame (when it was a thing), earn income box and the bottom line when we were using the season 1 sheets. This even goes back to first edition.
So I am 100% agreement that we should go back to the season 1 style sheets and advise that they are there for the player and not GM to fill out.
If they happen to want to keep the new style. Can we get rid of the boon section and do something else with the reputation area.
IMO, we do not need the former. We all know where to look for boons.
The latter, it does not need to be that big. Something like the first sheet, but reduce it down to two lines. Have not seen a need for the third faction line, yet...
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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It is easy to not use the starting/ending boxes if one does not want to use them. I think, and I understand I am biased, the majority of people use those boxes.I guess it's fine as long as it's clear they are player benfit and not a GM chore.Not saying it is right. Alot of local GM, myself included, very rarely filled out the starting and ending of anything.
I just did the character number, faction, EXP, Gold Earned (TB), fame (when it was a thing), earn income box and the bottom line when we were using the season 1 sheets. This even goes back to first edition.
The Omaha Lodge was one of the few that actually followed the guide for filling out chronicles for 1e. There are few old posts when I was talking about it us actually following it.
I am for whatever the Organized Play Leadership settles on. I hope they will settle on adding back the tracking boxes so we can better track the XP and Gold for our characters without having to write in the margins or track on a separately.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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One time this came up no one had even seen a DM that actually did that.
Then we found one DM that did that. And one player who'd seen a DM do it at gencon. So we were up to two.
Then it turned out those DMs were the same DM and we were back down to one...
I wonder if that GenCon GM was me... :)
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Given the size of the Gold and XP earned boxes, adding back in tracking functionality is trivial in itself, but there are other oddities.
Things about the sheet which drive me nuts include how big the reputation box is when we at most get reputation with MAYBE three factions, the equal numbers of lines for purchased items and sold items (this should really be a 2:1 ratio) and other minor things. (I get trying to direct players to the online ACP system, but uh the size of the boon box when it no longer carries the text kills me a little bit when it never carries the text anyways).
Heck I did it in Inkscape in an hour. (https://tinyurl.com/y2y4t34d)
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As somebody who is now just going to write this information onto my sheets, because that is where I keep that information, I was wondering if there had been any official comment on why they took these boxes away? Was there any discussion with the community before they went in this direction? And is there any second thoughts about putting them back?
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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Just split the items back by tiers, and yup, thats pretty much what I want.
Having seen a recent adventure having the chronicle being updated after it was released, I saw a number of low tier items removed. This caused me to consider that and realized the items removed were already available to the low tier characters.
I personally don't see not having split tiers as a challenge.
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Organized Play Manager
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We've had chronicle sheets as an OP meeting topic for the past few weeks, but didn't want to make changes while we were in the middle of staff position shifts. We've shifted bodies, but now we need to give some time for Thurston (and our new dev once hired) to get ramped up before we start talking particulars. (This also ties into the larger digitization project and some other PFS revamps as well). I do not expect capacity to look at this until after Jan scenarios are in the can, so it will be a bit of time before we can get answers, but know the team is discussing the issues.
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Personally I don't care for them. As long as it lists the XP and Gold gained, I don't really care. The only thing I use the chronicle sheet for is to have a record of a scenario I played. Whenever I get a chronicle, I just put the XP and money earned onto my hard copy character sheet.
I read somewhere where Paizo wanted to get rid of the chronicle sheet altogether, but haven't seen that in anything official. If they did that, would we rely on GM to put info into Paizo? Some of the ones I've played with didn't do it and I have to rely on the chronicle as "proof".
Just my thoughts...to each his own.
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The beauty behind having the boxes on the chronicle is that they are can be ignored if desired.
I agree.
1) If the boxes are put back on the chronicle sheets and one doesn't like using them? Then just don't use them. But for those people who actually use them and the boxes are still removed...you can't use them.2) why put equipment items on the sheet if everyone has access to them already
3) grouping equipment access gained by tier would be useful.