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My new interest in looking for online PFS play has me checking out this forum daily. I had the opportunity to play a Roll20/G+ game and it basically went flawless. It was a very good experience.
With the 1000's (just a guess) of nation(world?)wide PFS players and a great mix of GM's, why are we not seeing dozens of opportunities for online play throughout the week? The current options get filled relatively quickly (at least all the ones that I've seen!).
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Personally, my break of GMing seems to be extended and might for the foreseeable future.
It seems few of those GM's are available for weekday games, fewer for a certain time slot. Similarly, many of the players have that limited availability, causing those few games to fill up quickly.
The best advice I can give is to check frequently. Games are posted here and on various mailing lists and Warhorn sites. Some of these are planned in advance, giving you a bit of pre-emptive sign up opportunity. Not always. In the end, it depends on skill and luck. That said...
May the Force be with you.
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I've had quite a lot of games over the past few months cancelled due to lack of signups (or players signing up and then cancelling at the last minute, or players signing up and then not showing up at all).
The last one I ran was The Confirmation, which I think only succeeded because I ran it shortly after it came out.
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Games are scheduled there in exactly the same way as here though?
Has nothing to do with games being scheduled. Has everything to do with the fact that Fans of Paizo serves the exact same function as the Paizo messageboards. Which seems to be your question about PFSOC compared to the Grand Lodge Online Play forum. Do you find Fans of Paizo to be superfluous? If not, why? And assuming you don't, what makes the PFSOC different? If I am misunderstanding your question, please enlighten me.
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Since the bottleneck is finding a GM, the value of any community that advertises VTT games is determined by the number of GMs advertising in that community. In my experience only and your mileage may vary etc etc., it does seem ironic that the forum here is not currently the best place to find a game. I know that the few games I've advertised to GM I've done in the PFSOC for no other reason than I've gotten into many games there as a player and wanted to "pay it forward" and put back into that community. I'm sure there's some sociological name for this phenomenon.
In any event, the number of GMs is the barrier, and as Lazarx correctly points out, adding a VTT to a first time GM's table adds another stressful component. But it really shouldn't! There are resources out there, specifically some youtube videos put out by some awesome PFSOC GMs that are great introductions to Roll20 and are easily found on google. Plus just ask for help if you need it, the Pathfinder/Roll20 community as a whole is pretty friendly.
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I ran a bunch of VTT games back in August. (Perhaps starting in July?)
I found that when the term started (I'm a college prof) in September, I just couldn't keep them going, alas. Part of that is also because my FtF game started up again, but part of it is just because at the end of the week, I'm pretty exhausted.
I do expect when summer rolls around that I'll start running games again, probably at the rate of one or two PFS scenarios a week. (I'd also be tempted to try to put together a regular group to do something like Dragon's Demand in campaign mode.)
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I personally have been turned off from Online Play, due to how I have been treated by fellow players and how fellow players treat each other. The GM's here are great, but I have had too many negative play sessions to want to continue to invest in Online play anymore. Also, the lack of organization has kind of been driving me insane. We have no ONE page, website or unified front that is actively used where everyone can go to to find all the info we need. It's like a disorganized game day that you are trying to muster an hour before game. I don't have time to wade through 100 posts and websites to find a link to sign up for a game.
I hope it changes, but for now I will be sitting out while better minds figure it out.
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We have no ONE page, website or unified front that is actively used where everyone can go to to find all the info we need. It's like a disorganized game day that you are trying to muster an hour before game.
If you consider it ONE single gameday, then you are undoubtedly going to find it a headache. The actuality of the matter is that it is several different gamedays in the same space.
While I would agree a single board like you see at FLGS's for games would be nice, I think trying to push one would just add another competing LFG site to the list.
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We have no ONE page, website or unified front that is actively used where everyone can go to to find all the info we need. It's like a disorganized game day that you are trying to muster an hour before game.If you consider it ONE single gameday, then you are undoubtedly going to find it a headache. The actuality of the matter is that it is several different gamedays in the same space.
My thing is, if there are nine different games going on, it would be nice to have one place to sign up, and one place to post your game so that everyone only needs to look in one place. That is what I am about. It's a total PITA to go through our forums, multiple Facebook's and warhorn to find games. It's too much work.
One site to rule them all, and split from there. That is what I am referring to.
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I agree with the sentiment that the organization of online play is haphazard. The spirit of my initial post is because I'm trying to locate games only through this forum. But, some other kind responses pointed out there's at least one or two other places to check out. So, do I really want to invest the time to constantly check out every site daily or more often before a table gets filled. I simply can't take that kind of time...not to mention it becomes tedious.
I really wanted to be notified the instant a new online game is announced via e-mail (so subscribe somewhere) and then I have the opportunity to sign up relatively quickly if I want to play that game.
The one game I played I found the players to be a lot of fun and in very good humor. I'm curious to know more context around the mistreatment, but it is a shame that would happen at all.
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It's too much work.I don't disagree, it's just work I am willing to do.
See my edit above.One site to rule them all, and split from there. That is what I am referring to.
Listen, no disrespect, but I don't have time to hunt. If we ran our IRL game days the way we run online currently, I wouldn't go to your game locations. because I have no idea what is going on, where to go and what the status of the game. That is a waste of time and energy, two things I do not have a lot of due to my non-gaming responsibilities.
You guys are gonna run your games the way you want, and that is fine if you have the time to do that. But I do not, so until I see it is easier for me to get into a game and not have to sift through hundreds of sites, I will do what I stated earlier and sit out.
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Listen, no disrespect, but I don't have time to hunt.
Never said you did. But what you want isn't going to happen without a heavy hand, one that Paizo and the PFS campaign organizers aren't willing to use from what I can see.
This whole discussion reminds me of this.
If we ran our IRL game days the way we run online currently...
Indeed, if we ran every convention in the same location at the same time, it would be a headache.
...I will do what I stated earlier and sit out.
And I think that is a perfectly reasonable response.
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Online play is not really like a game day or a con. It's more like lots of random individual home games where the GMs have put up advertisements in one or more of a handful of public places to invite random people into their homes for the games. As such, yes, it is very much less organized than a con or a game day. Occasionally, you do see organized "online cons" (RPGGeek had one back in October, which I had to bow out of at the last minute due to illness).
Also, to be clear, "online" means two different things: PbP and VTT. (And, of course, you can find variations within that.) I think here we're mostly talking about VTT, i.e. Virtual TableTop, where people use some sort of Internet voice chat and a VTT program like MapTool or Roll20. PbP, or Play-by-Post (also, in ages past, PBEM), is less similar-- people play by posting to message boards, and games last weeks or months rather than hours.
Lady Oph, I'm sorry you found players in the VTT games you've played in to be abusive to each other. I've played in a few games, and have GMed several, and generally for the most part have found people to be quite reasonable.
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I've actually been wondering for a while - what's the value in PSOC now that Paizo's introduced the Grand Lodge Online Play messageboard?
For me, at least, is faster notification, and an easier time announcing the occasional game I run.
With the PFSOC, I have it set to send me the posts as emails, so I see them fairly quickly, especially since I usually have my email open when I am at home, and a way to easily look at it onm the road. With the forum here, I have to come to the site, and don't always remember to.
@Lady O: I think part of the problem is that there is no one true Online PFS Organization, and, just as an example, this forum is a relative late-comer to the field.
In order to have a single sign-up/organization site, there would have to be a large group of people with admin rights to the site, as each GM would almost certaiunly need admin rights to add their game to the schedule.
One possible solution, but it would require Paizo to spend additional resources and may not be cost effective for them, would be to add a sign-up capability to their Events system. This would have both upsides and downsides, and have to be choosable as an opt-in system, since some sites want to use their own event system (like my local FLGS) for event sign-ups.
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As the admin of the PFSOC, I don’t want to be organizing a constant game day. Even before I became a venture officer of a completely unrelated region, I didn’t have the time to update a central document or to become the coordinator for all the games that are run on PFSOC. No one does. And on top of that, no matter what system of organization we pick – it will mess up with how some people operate. Unlike real-life games, it’s much easier for someone to pick up their game and move it to another community. Online communities like PFSOC want to retain GMs because the more GMs, the bigger their community grows and the more games they can offer and when it comes to actually running the game, it’s best if the community from which they’re playing stays out of the way. (Unless of course, they’re breaking PFS rules. Then that’s something the online VOs/moderator of the group needs to get involved with.)
Of course, this is not to say that there isn’t value in highly structured online groups/gamedays. Jesse Davis has been running an excellent warhorn site for quite some time now, and the online gamedays have overall been successful (at least from my point of view). However, the fact is online play has completely different organizational needs than real-life gaming, and it would be an absolute shame to attempt to impose restrictions on online gaming that don’t need to be there.
Lady Ophelia, I understand you have had bad experiences with online play, and I’m not going to deny that or belittle it. I would find it strange if someone said that they have had entirely positive experiences with online play. I’ve certainly had tables that haven’t gone well and players that I thought were problematic or frustrating to play with. However, I am sad that a few online players have sullied your experience. Online play is currently at one of the healthiest states it has been in a while in terms of the culture of players. However due to the fragmented play of online play, it’s going to be harder to control the quality of those players. Certainly, PFSOC bans the most egregious ones from our list, but there will always be pockets of players we don’t know about. Online play is like a giant convention – you can control who you play with to a large extent, but you are going to deal with playing with lots of different people, especially if you’re new to that convention. I tell you this not to try to convince you of anything, but to tell you not to hold your breath for the changes you seek. Online play is constantly changing and evolving, but I don’t see the basic formula changing any time soon. (I do hope you do come back at some point though – you seem to be a pretty cool person from your messageboard posts.)
Avatar-1, there’s one major reason that I feel that PFSOC is still relevant – we are already a big, developing community supporting a big PFS player base. You can’t just move a community this big. I feel that the transition from PFSOC to the Paizo boards would be more damaging to the community than the gains from using only the Paizo boards. Besides, more avenues to play PFS online is not a bad thing. (Also, why would only PFSOC have to move? What about all of the various warhorns, or any other online site that plays PFS online? Like yours?)
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We have no ONE page, website or unified front that is actively used where everyone can go to to find all the info we need. It's like a disorganized game day that you are trying to muster an hour before game. I don't have time to wade through 100 posts and websites to find a link to sign up for a game.
I think the problem there is you're comparing all of online play to ONE convention when you should be comparing it to all of meatspace play or ALL conventions, which are similarly disorganized and lacking in any unified information gathering.
I didn't know that i was 1-2 hours away from multiple conventions a year because without knowing the names of the conventions information on them can be hard to get. Similarly if someone wanted to try to find a local game day they're kind of out of luck unless they know the exact town that its in.
Even knowing where my local gameday is trying to google it is a pain. The only way I even found out about one of the local game days is (by bizzaro coincidence) my online group was also a local group.
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Why is there not an overwhelming onslaught for Online play?
The answer is this is that there is and is not. There is a very large community of individuals who offer private tables online. These are not listed anywhere and thus are not seen by the public. There are private warhorns and mailing lists out there that are by invite only. The reasons for this varies by miles, I'll try to address it down the line.
Currently the paizo boards are not the easiest to navigate. Even though I frequent the boards every day, the listings like we are currently doing can cause confusions quickly and headaches. That is why a number of people use outside resources for listings. This is one of the reasons why there are so many different listings.
The online community, even though we have some amazing officers who have tremendous leadership skills, by its very nature is not as easily shepherd by officers that could help to give guiding hands. Praise is sparse in the community to continue the growth of online game masters. A correctional guiding hand is sparse due to how easy it is to keep things hidden: like reporting not being done or chronicles taking weeks or months to be issued. It is difficult to keep game masters in the community. The above has also been part of the reason why various gamemasters have banded together to form smaller communities; just so they can support each other. In short: To have community. The online community desperately craves community, that is why many of our folks are here.
There is a problem with those that band together. It is that they start using different resources like different warhorns which makes it difficult for players to find games. This helps to spread-out where you can find games. The positive is that the gamemasters are getting the much needed support that they nee
Another issue is that we have had some individuals in the community who want to be leaders but have been declined for one reason or another by the powers that be; thus they start splinter groups. These groups tend to have a whole wide sort of issues that effect the larger online community since they occur online. Granted some of these individuals just want to be organizers, but we do have quiet a few groups that fester with those who feel they have been jaded.
All of this has lead to a disjointed online community. It also helps shows the need for one centralized community and a need for a central hub for leadership. Ask most players at a table, they will have no clue who the online officers are for the community or even as to why or what roles these officers are to serve.
Another issue is that we have a tremendous number of problem players. From extreme power gamers who want to challenge you on every decision you make and are affronted if you ask them to please not metagame; to those who intentionally disrupt the table with remarks that very from extremely crass to showing prejudice to sexually inappropriate. I'll be honest in the last seven days I almost completely turned away from the online community for how difficult the community can be; however at the moment I stay because the good does outweigh the bad here. The bad however tends to spread quickly.
This is another reason why if we could just get a central hub with a strong support community, things could be so much better. It is hard to duplicate what we can find at shops or in people's homes or at community centers, but we have to make special efforts to be hospitable. It is so easy to forgo hospitality when you are not face to face with someone.
BUT to answer the question the online community is tremendously large, we are however so disjointed and disorganized that we suffer because of it and that it makes us appear to be small.
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James - the big advantage with pfrpg.com.au (and probably the only advantage, at this point) is that emails are sent out to registered players when a game is scheduled for only the scenarios players mark off as scenarios that they haven't played. If that didn't exist, I think it would become similarly obsolete.
Personally I would much prefer it if Paizo had a system that covered what pfrpg and warhorn do. It seems to me the big attraction of PSOC is the email notifications. I don't care to use that myself, so I can't comment, but it seems like another thing Paizo could implement.
Lady Ophelia hit it on the head - why bother making players hunt for games if we can afford to settle on a central location (be it Paizo GLOP, PSOC or wherever else)? If we could have one place that has all the features we want, moving everyone over would be the most ideal option.
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Honestly I think a lot of this could be resolved if for public play it was mandated to have a central location to use. Anything else would be private table. Then we could work on, Lord knows we need it, ways to build community. The boards are an ok support system but we really do need to find away to support one another as game masters for our community in order to provide solidness for our players. Right now its real easy to get real lonely real quick out there.
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What would really be cool is a central PFS Online calendar that players can subscribe to and GM's can list their games on that can be registered to. This calendar would allow players to configure their days and times that they are free and could notify via e-mail the moment (or whatever frequency desired) a game is posted.
I can picture the configuration to also allow a player to enter in which scenarios they're already played so as to reduce the number of unnecessary e-mails. Even more enhanced, a player could enter very basic character information, especially level, and then get the most relevant notifications.
With such a centralized system, it could also be smart enough, because of its awareness of all the entered players configurations noted above, to give the GM instant feedback as to which scenarios would be best played on what days and times. Of course, this information would only get better as more and more detail gets entered over time from the players and as the system matures.
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So here's my take on all of it.
We as an "Online Region" can be centralized if we wanted to be. The issue at hand (as I am seeing from the responses to my posts) is that no one ACTUALLY wants to put in the work to centralizing it. Nor do leadership sound like they even want to *consider* the idea. It sounds to me like we want to remain free form and disorganized.
If that is the way the community wishes to run themselves, then I respect that above all my own personal beliefs.
It's just not something I am going to choose to get involved in at this time.
I think of organizing like this: each real life area in PFS has a central hub whether that be Facebook, Warhorn, Meetup, etc. This is the NUMBER ONE place to go for this local regions "Public" games. Players then can view the open games, sign up (if applicable) and get all the information they need for their games in one place, without having to jump from site to site.
Now granted, you are going to always have those groups that wish to game in private, and PFS allows us that flexibility, but they are not on this "public" forum. They organize their games according on their own terms. This is also acceptable and fair as it's their choice as well.
But there is still one main PUBLIC site to rule them all.
The VO's can watch and update accordingly, if there is a rule change, they can put it up on the public forums, and it will trickle into the private groups as well. But there is ONE PUBLIC PLACE. Where no matter where you *actually* game, there is still an open space where new players can get the info, and veterans can stay updated between games.
At the end of the day, I do hope that we can move to some form of organized format as such. It was stated in earlier posts that there is a website in the works. I genuinely hope that something like that will allow players/GM's the place to meet and connect and grow the community just as a FLGS or public gaming place in real life does the same.
BTW: I am open to returning. But just as TriOmegaZero mentioned, I do need to see somethings change before I am down with making a comeback.
Also, if the attitude of the community is "don't hold your breath", then all you have really done, is reaffirmed my decision to stay out and invest my time and energy in other PFS opportunities.
Good luck out there. :D
I personally have been turned off from Online Play, due to how I have been treated by fellow players and how fellow players treat each other. The GM's here are great, but I have had too many negative play sessions to want to continue to invest in Online play anymore. Also, the lack of organization has kind of been driving me insane. We have no ONE page, website or unified front that is actively used where everyone can go to to find all the info we need. It's like a disorganized game day that you are trying to muster an hour before game. I don't have time to wade through 100 posts and websites to find a link to sign up for a game.
I hope it changes, but for now I will be sitting out while better minds figure it out.
I'm on the fence about it, but agree strongly with Lady O:
- I don't see meanness and snark as much, but I do notice that people are engaged more in "parallel play". They don't interact, do stuff only when it's their turn, and don't cut up and BS like we do in face to face games.
What REALLY upsets me is GMing in a four hour block, getting done, having people ask me for a CS and then type "great game thanks bye" and leave. I like to talk about the game, visit for a little bit, and otherwise enjoy some interaction with my players.. not "chronicle sheet it and beat it!"
- there is no centralized signup sheet for online games and it's really hard to find one and be assured I've got a seat.
- there are three different formats that I see: Roll20, Hangouts, Fantasy Grounds. FG requires a license (I have an Ultimate and like it), Hangouts is flaky and Roll20 is bad with voice. This generally means Roll20 + voice solution like a teamspeak/mumble/ventrillo server. I have one with 25 slots and an annual subscription for a year, but there's a lot of complexity in setup and getting it all running that is a turn off.
If somebody could do what Prethen suggests and have ONE big calendar with a "session of the day" and could do pickup games, I'd be down. Otherwise, I GM if and only if people ask me and have date/time/group in mind.
My last complaint, and it's really stupid, is that there is no online chronicle sheet. I have to print the stupid thing out six times, scan it six times, and then email a correct copy to everybody who may or may not get it. I am NOT asking for a universal one, and I am NOT asking for an editable one.. Just a way to email one in PDF without having to print it and scan it. >_<
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I won't lie, I miss our blank template!
I used to just copy and paste everything from the master chronicle sheet. And then I was allowed to leave nice fun notes to players post-game. After completing the form, I locked the documment so players couldn't change it as well. It was awesome.
Now I have to scan and do three times more work on CS's. Which is another major turnoff to PFS Online play right now to me as well. I already have to prep an online game and run it, making my life harder by now having to manually scan in a CS and making six copies of it doesn't help.
I hope we get something like a fillable chronicle sheet. That is definitely something I would not be against paying an extra dollar or two more for. As well as interactive maps like the AP PDF's. Those have been amazing in my Wrath of The Righteous online game.
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I wouldn't even run PFS games online if I had to use a print-and-scan method.
Foxit PDF Editor lets you "export" (save) the chronicle sheet as a separate PDF file, which you can open and edit to add the details by adding text fields and cross-out lines one-by-one. It's not as good as form-fillable, but it does the job reasonably.
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I don't understand how you can take " we are currently working on a centralized websute " and turn it into " leadership clearly doesn't want to centralize things ".
I am sorry, I don't mean to be a dick. But I am calling it like I see it..
I see you guys saying "We are working on a website to be centralized" but in the same breath say "but we aren't going to centralize because we don't want to infringe upon others rights."
So what is it really? This is not to devalue the work of the VO's. But based on the responses, I am confused as to the state of leadership's plans to better our community by creating a website, that won't really do much for the community besides be an information site.
Again, not trying to be a dick, just a little confused is all.
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It looks like you guys just want to force people to play in your box...
Trying to control people always works for the best right?
"Lizen, you will playza and runza in thiz one place. Violators will be BANNED from zee online PFS... You understand, ja?"
All Arthur is saying is that a tool is being developed to help centralize things. However it will be optional because even though it may be more convenient for you its would be a dick move to try and mandate it to everyone...
Let's be honest really, the problem is the same as it always is... Not enough people are GM'ing...
Now it seems we can add to that list with... people are too lazy to find games if it means they have to click more than once.
Not sure what everyone's problem is, when I want to play I can find a game, when I GM my tables are always full... There are multiple slots available each day... If you cant find a game then run one.