Overloaded Beginners - Rant


Gamer Life General Discussion

Liberty's Edge

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Sometimes people really tick me off.

{ This example was PFS, but really applies to almost anything. }

[rant]
I was at a PFS event last week and there were a couple of beginners present trying to learn about the game. The one has played some PnP RPG’s a long time ago, but nothing as extensive as the PF system (his description not mine). The other has never played any PnP RPG at all but has played some RPG video games (some of which are similar concept, some not).

They had just finished playing We Be Goblins and appeared to have fun. They seemed to be getting a bit nervous over the whole ‘wall-o-books’ thing and asked me for some help/opinions. I assured them that the ‘wall-o-books’ was not necessary and getting started was easier than it might seem at first. You really only need to start with the Core Rule Book and the free download Guide to PFS.

I am by no means a PF expert, but I have successfully taught a few people the hobby. At most PFS events I carry 4 or 5 readymade PC’s that are CRB only. They are fairly generic but perfectly playable. The sheets have some suggestions for what to purchase as funds become available, what feats to pick as they advance, what skills can be helpful, what spells to select (if it gets any), etc… I specifically tell them these are beginner PC’s. You don’t have to follow it, but they have a fairly basic build progression suggested. The other books do give more (and more powerful) options, but they aren’t necessary. These builds are perfectly capable of pulling their own weight and contributing to the group throughout their career. And if in a couple levels you decide you don’t like it, you can just start another PC (although it will have to be at level 1). I’ve done that myself. I have 4 different PC’s that I play in PFS.

They looked through the builds and one of them selected a ranger that can use a bow or thw pretty well (he liked the fact that it would eventually get some magic once he had learned the system better). The other picked the tank fighter. Both are reasonable.

Then we started discussing what parts of the CRB they should learn/read first.

Here’s where it broke down. Three other guys came by and just took over the conversation. “Oh, these builds suck. At level 10 you can do so much better with tiefling archer(ftr)/4-arm alchemist, an aasimar zen archer/inquisitor, a pouncing kitsune barbarian, etc...
I tried to bring it back around, “Guys these are beginners. Any of those would require at least 4-5 more books, are very complex, use many of the little understood rules, and are just plain difficult to run properly.”
They pretty much ignored me or responded with an off had, “It’s not that tough and were supposed to promote the sale of more books.”
Those 2 ended up leaving the store (not buying the CRB’s they had already picked up to purchase) and I doubt they are coming back. The helpful idiots just said, “If they weren’t ready to put down for several books they would have given up eventually anyway, so no loss.”

I was so irritated and dumbfounded that I just couldn’t respond to them without it becoming a fight. The VL said he would talk to them about it (he didn’t sound very interested so, I don’t know if he really will or not). But why is that even necessary? How could anyone think that was actually the best way to introduce someone new to the game? Really? Seriously? Sheesh…

[/rant]

Ok, I got some of that off my chest so I can calm down now.

I know you guys can’t down anything about it and the world is full of stupid people. Have you had deal with any buffoons like this?


I've met people like this. And unfortunately organized play is something of a crapshoot. You dont know who you are going to be playing with and to me at least it is not the best way to introduce people to the game. Home games do a better job of that. I dont know what the pfs rules are for a DM, but someone who just drove away 2 new players by being elitist dueshnozzles wouldnt be playing at my table. Are there some people that are going to just jump right into the wall of books? Sure. But there are others that just want to play and learn and have fun.

I do not play organized play anymore. I did a while back, but I just had too many games ruined by jerks, who I could do nothing about because of the limitations organized play has to put on players and dms. So now I play at home games only, with actual friends. Who I like, and who's company I desire. Its not perfect, but at least if one of my friends is being an idiot I can call him out on it.


Hello Lavode,
Speaking as a (recent, about 2 months) beginner myself, I consider myself fortunate not to have met such folks. Then again, I started playing through roll20, so meeting folks like that was unlikely.

In any case, the best tools I had as a beginner where 2 things:

-the pathfinder SRD
-the d20pfsrd

All the info is there, in convenient format, and you dont have to pay (big plus for a starving student). Have the CRB for convenience, but all the info from the splat books can be found elsewhere if needed. That made me less nervous, I'll admit.

In any case, I'm happy to have been able to discover things at my own pace. When I finally got to the point of thinking "optimising could be fun", I came here, and discovered tons of strangeness. I dont tend to min/max, but I like to make the best out of weird ideas.

Still, I think you got a particullarly douchy gang of folks bugging those beginers. My local PFS people where fairly friendly, and dont optimise much, so I've been having fun on occasion.

Liberty's Edge

Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure those 3 guys thought they were being helpful and friendly. {sigh}


Yeah... some people just have low wisdom scores. And sense motive. In any case, I've been lucky to be able to organize myself before trying organized play. They're set up in a local university club, and the folks are friendly.

I will admit, while I like organized play for "testing out" a build, I would not recommend as a method of getting into roleplaying. Personally, I prefer small games (3-4 players) so that every player can get attention (6+ games can be frustrating). Outside interference is also pretty frustrating, but it's the consequence of playing in a game store.

Silver Crusade

From the sounds of it, it is possible that the people weren't douches but were instead people TRYING to share their enthusiasm for the game and TRYING to give helpful advice and abjectly failing in doing so.

I really hope the VL DID in fact have a nice constructive talk with the players later.

As an aside, I always recommend the starter box as well as the CRB to new players. It does a brilliant job of making Pathfinder as accessible as it can be made.

The Exchange

Aren't you glad the Three Jerks were in town? Just think - if not for them, more people would be enjoying our hobby. Bloody 'experts'...

If you have to deal with this sort of situation again - and we're talking kibbitzing audience members, not people who are actually sitting at the table to play - feel free to use the phrase, "We're trying to game here. Please let us get on with it." If that fails, remember that just because the statements, "Shut up. Go away. Mind your own business. You are not welcome," are rude doesn't mean they cannot be employed when all subtler means of carrying your point have been ignored.


My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine wrote:

Ok, I got some of that off my chest so I can calm down now.

I know you guys can’t down anything about it and the world is full of stupid people. Have you had deal with any buffoons like this?

WOW. That is made of fail. -_-

What a group of stooges.

I wish I could have been there to invite the newbies to a game.

Liberty's Edge

pauljathome wrote:
From the sounds of it, it is possible that the people weren't douches but were instead people TRYING to share their enthusiasm for the game and TRYING to give helpful advice and abjectly failing in doing so. ...

Oh, I absolutely agree they were not trying to be jack holes. But they succeeded in being jack holes anyway.

They were just about the worst examples of helpful I think I've ever seen. ( Well outside of work anyhow. I've seen much worse in my professional experience. )

I just don't see how people can't get the concept of simple and basic for beginners.

If you have a visitor from Lower Zambezekistan and he says he wants to learn to drive a car like an American. Are you going to start by handing him a Kawasaki ZX? Because you know, if he's serious he should jump right in the deep end immediately.

Yes, if you've been playing PF for years (and maybe D&D before that), a raging half-orc barbarian with a great axe is boring and cliché. But there is a reason for that. That was probably one of the early PC concepts you learned on. So you have seen it done a bunch of times. The new guy has not.

pauljathome wrote:
... As an aside, I always recommend the starter box as well as the CRB to new players...

I usually do, but they were wanting to game at the PFS events since they didn't know enough interested people for a home game.

Silver Crusade

Granted if your couple of new players were normal people in that situation, I think that they would have realized that these dbags were advanced know it all players and would disregard their opinion. If I were learning something new say badminton for example and some douchebags came over while someone was trying to teach me how to play, I would dismiss them immediately and continue.

Its likely that your people saw it would require a lot of time and effort to learn and didn't want to invest the time. Meaning even if the tools didn't come by, they may have left never to return.

Sovereign Court

Had that same thing happen to me. Although it wasn't PFS, but regular game at a FLGS where i was teaching a bunch of beginners. I told them politely once that they should back off with that kind of advice, because they are freaking the kids out. They didn't heed. So i promptly got up and used several choice words in a loud an threatening manner. That made them back off. Then i sat down, smiled and said to the beginners "And that, kids, is how you deal with wild animals on the loose". Fortunately, some sort of brain damage they all incured made them laugh, and two of them are now my players while the rest of them play one game or another.


Ugh, I hate that kind of player. I've had players set to make their characters who became overwhelmed when someone tried to show them all the rules at once.


I think thats all part of pathfinder,

System mastery is uber important (its what people on these boards seem to spend 90% of their time doing and debating) and the differences between a min/maxed character and a character built for concept are HUGE.

If your new to a game system and you build your average character, and are sitting next to a guy wearing a "I won the DPS olympics!" t-shirt your going to feel your character is pathetic and lame. were the two jerks wrong? only partially IMOHO, introducing the new players to the pathfinder uber-build arms race was a bit much, but if thats not the kind of game they wanted, If they didnt really want to buy a crap ton of books (no matter how good the content or art), they really wouldent be happy with pathfinder anyway.


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baalbamoth wrote:

I think thats all part of pathfinder,

System mastery is uber important (its what people on these boards seem to spend 90% of their time doing and debating) and the differences between a min/maxed character and a character built for concept are HUGE.

If your new to a game system and you build your average character, and are sitting next to a guy wearing a "I won the DPS olympics!" t-shirt your going to feel your character is pathetic and lame. were the two jerks wrong? only partially IMOHO, introducing the new players to the pathfinder uber-build arms race was a bit much, but if thats not the kind of game they wanted, If they didnt really want to buy a crap ton of books (no matter how good the content or art), they really wouldent be happy with pathfinder anyway.

Um .... No? Three is absolutely nothing wrong or weird about just playing pathfinder with the core book, you don't have to "catch 'Em all" to be 'really playing'.

Yo can play a perfectly satisfying and complete game with just basic rules. And yes, the DPS Olympics guys, whether intentionally or not, were being jerks.

Sovereign Court

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Being a DPR olympian is wrong anyway...


If theres nothing wrong or weird with just playing with the core book... how come I have never found ONE pathfinder group who does it that way? I'd say that makes using just the core book pretty weird, on top of that I have never been to a pathfinder game where at least one player did not have their character's progression completely mapped out to level twenty, commonly its two to three or all players who have done this.


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baalbamoth wrote:
If theres nothing wrong or weird with just playing with the core book... how come I have never found ONE pathfinder group who does it that way? I'd say that makes using just the core book pretty weird, on top of that I have never been to a pathfinder game where at least one player did not have their character's progression completely mapped out to level twenty, commonly its two to three or all players who have done this.

That's because that is how your groups play the game. There's nothing at all deficient about playing core only. We all played that way before the APG, anyway.

It may be true that most groups will add more to the core, but it's important that people add sources at their own pace, not at the pace of some other PFS propeller-heads or message board participants.


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baalbamoth wrote:
If theres nothing wrong or weird with just playing with the core book... how come I have never found ONE pathfinder group who does it that way? I'd say that makes using just the core book pretty weird, on top of that I have never been to a pathfinder game where at least one player did not have their character's progression completely mapped out to level twenty, commonly its two to three or all players who have done this.

BAM! Ninja'd by Bill Dunn

Pro tip: Just because you've not seen something doesn't mean there's anything wrong or weird about it.

There's many reasons groups might not want to use anything beyond core. Maybe it's to keep the options relatively simple. Maybe they really don't want to spend the extra money. New groups will regularly stick to core only for a good long while (I'm teaching a group of high school students to play at the moment, and you're damn right it's core only, because none of them have played before). My main group played Core only for a little while because none of the guys had really played much D&D or Pathfinder before apart from myself. I slowly introduced them to the rest of it.

And guess what, no one in my group has their characters mapped out that far ahead. I don't either in the game that one of the other group members GMs. We prefer to create our characters and then decide how to build them as we go, based on character development in game. We aren't into optimisation for the most part (at most I think a few levels ahead early on to make sure I'll be effective, then just go with what I think suits).

Implying that it's weird just because you've never seen it is silly. There's plenty of things I've never personally witnessed, doesn't mean they're weird at all.


I know how you feel I've had that happen a few times
Back in the late 90's i was an AD&D demonstrators for TSR i also had my own games store (happy days)
And on a few occasions i would get a bunch of aholes say how they should all be playing drop ninja mage clerics with a couple of lvls of ranger for good measure not much you cam do im afraid short of telling them to go f$&$ themselves

Silver Crusade

@ OP

That is very irritating. This past weekend I was playing at a nearby to me convention called Council of Five Nations. I had allot of fun playing.

In one game I played in, we went through "The Lost Heir". The GM I felt did a fantastic job for several reasons. We all were playing at 1st level. At the table we had five players. Across from me was a family. A mother and two of her children, two boys one 8 and the other perhaps 10. They had Pre generated characters. The younger boy had Ezren the wizard, and the slightly older boy had Valeros the fighter. Their mother had Kyra the cleric.

There was another gentlemen at the table who, from his physical behavior and his social behavior, I can only guess that he must have had some sort of diagnoses. He chose to play Mirisiel the Rogue. He didn't have a first level character available. The GM and the man playing the rogue knew each other.

I had one of my own characters i was just starting out at 1st level, a Kitsune sorceress, (Sylvan bloodline specializing in enchantment/charm) .

I felt confident that we were going to do well. For once we had a nicely well rounded party.

The GM was doing an excellent job at weaving the story and bringing us into it. He was both able to help the new family of players with suggestions about what to do, and answers to their questions.

As we were playing I noticed the player next to me, the one I think had a diagnosis, got very upset when the rules were not exactly followed. I mean exactly. He would begin rocking in his chair. It was almost as if some sort of pressure was building up inside of him. And then one of two things would happen, either he would blurt out the rule discrepancy, or he would leave the table and jump around a bit. He would do this until his energy had been expended, then a bit calmer he would return to the table to continue playing. The GM, who knew this player, remained calm and would firmly but politely thank the player for his help, but remind him that he was GMing and didn't need the help with the rules.

This player started in on how poorly the pre gens were made. He pointed out what a poor choice of spells Ezren had, with Magic Missile at first level. The GM a bit exasperated, did his best to reassure the new players that their characters were just fine, and in the end we got the player with diagnosis to quiet down because we the (GM and I)explained that these were designed as beginner characters. Magic Missile as it turned out was a perfect spell for this 8 year old boy. He really liked rolling his D4 And the GM did a nice job at describing visually what was happening.

We did just fine. We had fun. There were plenty of touch and go moments, especially when the boy playing the wizard had his character explore ahead, while we were still engaged in combat, but that is the fun of the game.

So yeah I find these overly helpful players to be a bit over bearing especially when you have helped someone with their character and they are pleased with their character , only to be told.....oh that sucks you should do this.

I generally stick to the core rule book when making my characters. I don't really feel the need for all of these Archtypes, unless i have a specific character concept in mind, and then I will use one Archtype.


Dunn- five groups over two years at an open game night, and about 20-30 groups at a local yearly con I went to...

How many groups do I have to go through before I will find one that plays core only, and how many will it take before you will admit playing with core only IS weird?


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baalbamoth wrote:

Dunn- five groups over two years at an open game night, and about 20-30 groups at a local yearly con I went to...

How many groups do I have to go through before I will find one that plays core only, and how many will it take before you will admit playing with core only IS weird?

Wearing a cat on your head is weird. Playing Core only is an uncommon, but legitimate, play style.

Sovereign Court

baalbamoth wrote:

Dunn- five groups over two years at an open game night, and about 20-30 groups at a local yearly con I went to...

How many groups do I have to go through before I will find one that plays core only, and how many will it take before you will admit playing with core only IS weird?

At the end of 3.5, I found a lot of groups went back to core only, or core plus the odd exception (like, core+core psionics).

I helped to run a dnd club and my table ran through RotRL with core only.

A friend of mine called it splatbook fatigue.

I have never gamed with someone who has planned to level twenty, ever. It's actually a very impractical thing to do and I think it is just something that theorycrafters enjoy as an add-on to the game. It's something I have only ever seen online.

So, according to my experience (encompassing many, many players over the last twenty years) I could call your experience weird.

But that would be silly of me, because anecdotal data is very questionable and regional trends do not define the norm.

I would suggest you check up on The Most Important Rule before your next post as well.


Shard- never said it wasn't legit, I've just never seen it... I've also never seen somebody game with a cat on their head (also legit, theres no anti-head-cat rule in PF) so to me, yeah, equally as weird.

Geraint- was that back when it was an AP for D&D? Also, I understand back when there was only a core book that's the way people played... But how many groups have you seen in the past year that only used a core book? Even new PF players tend to buy an APG.

And uh... PF hasn't been out for twenty years and I've been playing RPGs for 33 years...

Jus sayin...

Sovereign Court

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baalbamoth wrote:

Dunn- five groups over two years at an open game night, and about 20-30 groups at a local yearly con I went to...

How many groups do I have to go through before I will find one that plays core only, and how many will it take before you will admit playing with core only IS weird?

Playing core only is as weird as playing with *gasp* house rules. ;). I think you probably have several more tables to go. Hell, I've been playing since day 1 (and D&D since the mid 70s) and still learn and see things about this game to this day.

Seriously though, it is completely fine to play a build that is core only. I find it weird that folks think they need all the books to make a decent PC.

For the OP, I would have interrupted the "experts" and pointed out that there are numerous ways to play PF, and what works for one person may not work for another. If they had continued, I would have asked them to sit, break out their CRBs only and build a better PC from that set of rules only.

Silver Crusade

GeraintElberion wrote:

I have never gamed with someone who has planned to level twenty, ever. It's actually a very impractical thing to do and I think it is just something that theorycrafters enjoy as an add-on to the game. It's something I have only ever seen online.

So, according to my experience (encompassing many, many players over the last twenty years) I could call your experience weird.

But that would be silly of me, because anecdotal data is very questionable and regional trends do not define the norm.

I would suggest you check up on The Most Important Rule before your next post as well.

I have two players in my home table-top group that does just that, plan all the way to level 20. So they too exist, and neither really read the Paizo forums unless I'm posting a FAQ or something.

I've tried it, and I just can't do it. I'll plan for a few levels usually, but mostly for the basic stuff. Well, except in DDO. I did plan my sorcerer there to 20.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the Core Only tpic, I have a friend who did Core-. As in Core minus monks since monks are eastern and shouldn't be in the core book. Also no eastern weapons (like nunchuks). Well, he did use traits I suppose. But when it was pointed out those were in the APG, he nearly pulled traits from his game too.

Sovereign Court

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baalbamoth wrote:
Geraint- was that back when it was an AP for D&D?

Yep.

baalbamoth wrote:
Also, I understand back when there was only a core book that's the way people played... But how many groups have you seen in the past year that only used a core book? Even new PF players tend to buy an APG.

My experience is that new players don't buy any books, just borrow from the GM and ask plenty of questions.

baalbamoth wrote:

And uh... PF hasn't been out for twenty years and I've been playing RPGs for 33 years...

Jus sayin...

Well, all forms of dnd allow you to buy splatbooks and plan builds. I was just pointing out that I have a similarly large sample size but a different experience.

I just don't think that you can decide what a 'normal' playstyle is based upon anyone's local experience. Not when discussing on an international forum.


baalbamoth wrote:
Shard- never said it wasn't legit, I've just never seen it... I've also never seen somebody game with a cat on their head (also legit, theres no anti-head-cat rule in PF) so to me, yeah, equally as weird.

I'm seeing more and more games playing "core only" (well, 3 games I'm aware of in my immediate gaming circle). Even APG is out. That's not including people playing E6, many of which play mostly with core.

Usually, playing core only is a reactionary movement to system bloat. I saw lots of that by the end of 3.5, but Pathfinder never got that "bloaty" until now-ish. Also, Paizo is nice enough to include most of its non-Golarion related content for free in the OGL, which WotC didn't do aside from Unearthed Arcana, Epic and one or two other.

I also don't see anything weird with playing core, even if it's uncommon.

'findel


GeraintElberion wrote:


I just don't think that you can decide what a 'normal' playstyle is based upon anyone's local experience. Not when discussing on an international forum.

A normal playstyle is to not fit anyone's generic template of what a normal playstyle should be :)


My wife's cleric is core only at the moment not including traits... So what?


My new players don't even buy the Core Rulebook. Heck, they don't spend any money on the game. That's because they know I'm eager to help them out, so they just ask me and I send them whatever info they need.

The makeup in my online Skype game (all newbies):

  • Human cavalier

  • Elf druid

  • Human cleric

  • Human paladin

  • And the cavalier only chose that class so he could play that fat nobleman from the Robin Hood Daffy Duck cartoon.

    The makeup in my real-life game, meanwhile:

  • Half-elf rogue, later multiclassed to bard

  • Half-elf ranger

  • Half-orc cleric

  • Elf druid

  • Elf fighter

  • Elf rogue (veteran player)

  • Half-elf alchemist (veteran player)
  • This is collected from a poll of nine newbie players. Counting one guy who almost joined our Skype group with a merfolk alchemist, I have only encountered two newbies in all my years of gaming who chose to play a non-Core class or race right off the bat.

    But, y'know, maybe I'm just weird.


    And since that post was getting kinda unpleasantly stretched, let me just add that the full options were always mentioned to these players. Most of them expressed a wish to "keep things simple", since they still wanted to "get used to things".

    Hm.


    Kobold Cleaver wrote:


    But, y'know, maybe I'm just weird.

    Do you wear a cat on your head?


    I'm a kobold. We'd wear skunks as shoulder pads if we thought it might keep adventurers away.


    Rictras Shard wrote:
    Kobold Cleaver wrote:


    But, y'know, maybe I'm just weird.
    Do you wear a cat on your head?

    My wife wears one as a scarf sometimes. Or is the cat using my wife as a belly warmer? I'm not sure...


    Kobold Cleaver wrote:
    I'm a kobold. We'd wear skunks as shoulder pads if we thought it might keep adventurers away.

    I'm from Quebec. Our ancestors used to wear raccoons on their head, Davy Crocket style. I'm pretty sure they were not alive, but it doesn't make it much less weird when you think of it...


    I found PFS to be more like a sport, there was a feeling of competition, and a need to play to maximum efficiency.

    I am a very long time RPGer and I brought in what thought was an interesting character to my first game of PFS, the first question I got asked when I showed people my character was why was I playing a halforc Cavalier? The next sentence was why didn't you play a barbarian, as you would do more damage.... Cut to my character smashing his way through the Blackross museum and saving the day twice...

    I think that kind of attitude can be off putting....

    I avoid PFS when I go to cons now manly because I want to play systems I haven't played before, but the this is a sport and if you are playing an optimised character then you are letting us down attitude doesn't help either.

    Liberty's Edge

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    Ok, this thread seems to have come back alive so I need to correct a few mistaken assumptions.

    1) I never said they should never buy or use any other books. But I strongly feel that most (99%) of new players should stick to CRB only until they feel comfortable with the system. If you have never played something pretty darn close, there is still quite a bit of stuff to learn in that one book.
    Also telling a prospective new player that you have to spend nearly $200 on books just to start is ridiculous. Yes, many people will eventually spend a lot more than that as they get into the hobby. But to say you must jump in at that level to start is wrong. Almost everyone I know started with just the CRB.

    2) I never said there is anything wrong with making optimized characters. But I strongly feel that telling a complete newbie that unless his character is one of the ultimate DPR builds he will lose is very wrong.
    PFS is very much designed to work with all skill levels of players. You do not need to have an uber-optimized kill thug to play.
    My first PFS character is CRB only (except for the traits that all PFS get and I think one spell). He has performed reasonably well and was an excellent learning tool. Is he the ultimate? No. Would I build him the same way now? No. But that was not the point. The point was to learn a new system.

    3) I never said those guys were not trying to help. In fact, I specifically said they thought they were helping. However, even though they were trying to help, they were spectacularly unsuccessful at helping. They actually chased away 2 potential recruits and it did not seem to bother them at all.

    --------------------

    On the 'weird' topic.

    One of my home group played for almost a year with CRB only just to make sure we learned the system. That was when we first switched over from DnD 3.x. At first we allowed everything from DnD and PF. Things got very confusing and contradictory. So we scaled back to just PFS CRB for a while. Then yes we started adding books. Now we allow almost everything from Paizo. We also allow 3pp as approved by the GM. One GM will allow almost anything in his games. The other is much less permissive.

    I know of at least one other group that only plays CRB and Bestiary 1 and have for years. I believe it is mostly a cost issue for those guys. (I'm no longer in that group. Not because of the CRB only thing, it was just personalities not meshing well.)


    My PFS Lavode De'Morcaine wrote:
    I know you guys can’t down anything about it and the world is full of stupid people. Have you had deal with any buffoons like this?

    I've played a lot of PFS (at conventions), but I haven't met anyone like those two. In general I've met very few players with broken builds. An isolated experience in your area imo.

    It's too bad.

    Silver Crusade

    Kobold Cleaver wrote:

    My new players don't even buy the Core Rulebook. Heck, they don't spend any money on the game. That's because they know I'm eager to help them out, so they just ask me and I send them whatever info they need.

    The makeup in my online Skype game (all newbies):

  • Human cavalier

  • Elf druid

  • Human cleric

  • Human paladin

  • And the cavalier only chose that class so he could play that fat nobleman from the Robin Hood Daffy Duck cartoon.

    The makeup in my real-life game, meanwhile:

  • Half-elf rogue, later multiclassed to bard

  • Half-elf ranger

  • Half-orc cleric

  • Elf druid

  • Elf fighter

  • Elf rogue (veteran player)

  • Half-elf alchemist (veteran player)
  • This is collected from a poll of nine newbie players. Counting one guy who almost joined our Skype group with a merfolk alchemist, I have only encountered two newbies in all my years of gaming who chose to play a non-Core class or race right off the bat.

    But, y'know, maybe I'm just weird.

    Kobold Cleaver, if I may make a suggestion, it might be a good idea to encourage your players to at least buy a Paizo PDF. If people don't spend any money on the game, Paizo can't keep their lights on, and we eventually won't have any new game materiel produced.


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    Not to sound callous, but I'm in the business of running a game, not keeping Paizo afloat. It's hard enough to do the former without bothering my players about the latter. ;P

    The thing is, not all players want to spend money on the game. It's not like I can force them. My job is to keep them interested long enough that they eventually want to run games of their own. No more.


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    Kobold Cleaver wrote:

    Not to sound callous, but I'm in the business of running a game, not keeping Paizo afloat. It's hard enough to do the former without bothering my players about the latter. ;P

    The thing is, not all players want to spend money on the game. It's not like I can force them. My job is to keep them interested long enough that they eventually want to run games of their own. No more.

    I have to agree with the cleaving Kobold. Paizo needs to sell Paizo's books, and I'm sure that's their attitude. GMs are not their salespeople. And at fifty dollars for basic entry, when player's rulebooks for other systems are often as low as $30 or $35, it's a tough sell, regardless. Don't get me started at how high the PDF prices are when they cost Paizo nothing more than hosting fees. The argument that it eats hardcover sales is defeated by making all the core rules available for free.

    That being said, when a player can afford to throw his own money at the core rulebook, it's to the good of the whole table that he does. It's one less person wanting the book passed to them. One less person potentially getting distracted by an email when they check a ruling on their phone or computer.

    So, usually, once someone joins my table, a core rulebook becomes their next birthday/christmas present from me.


    BillyGoat wrote:


    I have to agree with the cleaving Kobold. Paizo needs to sell Paizo's books, and I'm sure that's their attitude. GMs are not their salespeople. And at fifty dollars for basic entry, when player's rulebooks for other systems are often as low as $30 or $35, it's a tough sell, regardless. Don't get me started at how high the PDF prices are when they cost Paizo nothing more than hosting fees. The argument that it eats hardcover sales is defeated by making all the core rules available for free.

    Asking players in PFS to each buy the core rulebook is fair enough, but yeah in home games traditionally it's always started off as a single rulebook brought along by the GM wanting to try out that game, with players buying as and when they personally see fit to. If they enjoy the game enough they'll go out and buy them without GMs needing to start suggesting it.

    I have to disagree on the PDF pricing though - you still need to pay for the costs creating the product itself (time spent writing and developing, plus the artwork too), and the discount on the PDF tends to adequately reflect the savings from having no printing costs - and far more than that when you're looking at the heavily discounted corebooks for just $9.99.

    Scarab Sages

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    baalbamoth wrote:
    Shard- never said it wasn't legit, I've just never seen it... I've also never seen somebody game with a cat on their head (also legit, theres no anti-head-cat rule in PF)

    Good job, as I wouldn't be able to listen to these guys on the drive down.

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