RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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If you have an email registered here to receive PFS emails, you would have also received the faction briefs in August and in February.
I got the August letter, but have not seen the February one (not by email at least). I checked my spam folder. Is there anything I should report to the web team about this?
Thanks!
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For those that want the factions we could introduce a faction vanity:
Faction Member:(5 PP) You belong to faction, a subgroup within the society with primary interests and goals that may or may not conflict with the Decemvirate. Your primary loyalty lies with this group and although you will not outright betray the society for them, you nonetheless ensure your faction's goals are furthered when undertaking missions for the society. This loyalty in turn gives you access to special favors, items and vanities that are specific to your faction.
^- I really like this idea.
There could be one Faction vanity per faction. Having the vanity could occasionally unlock something in a scenario tied to that faction's subplot. Maybe an additional, minor reward of the RP variety. Maybe an additional opportunity in the adventure itself (extra dialogue, an easier time with a skill check, whatever).
You'd also have to give the vanity for free to any character who belonged to a faction before the change came into affect. Maybe have one "faction retirement" adventure per faction to go along with what was done for the Shadow Lodge and Lantern Lodge.
This way you'd still have all the RP opportunities if you want it, but being in a faction would be a little more special since it's a choice and not a requirement. By default, everyone is a Pathfinder and is there for their own reasons. By intention, some Pathfinders have extra loyalty to a nation or ideal.
This would be a good justification for why some factions (eg Taldor) are national, and others (eg The Silver Crusade) are more like social clubs. It would also open up the possibility of re-introducing the Lantern Lodge or Shadow Lodge at a later date. Or even expanding the list of factions freely as the campaign progresses. If the campaign management wants to stop dealing with a specific faction in the future they won't have to officially retire anything. They can just stop writing scenarios tied specifically to that faction and deal with it in the plot.
Heck, it even opens up the possibility of a character working for more than one faction. A Silver Crusade Eagle Knight, for example. It would require some prestige cost, but if a player wanted to go that route they could just buy multiple vanities (some vanities should probably be mutually exclusive, but whatever).
In-game, it's not like the Pathfinder society needs the factions to feed them recruits. The society is famous, and has just been prominently involved with the Fifth Crusade. By the time this season is over, there could be a flush of new recruits waiting in the wings.
Cancelling them for season 5 may be too soon, but "winding down the internal factions" could be a really interesting theme for season 6....
Oh, and another bonus. If the factions "end" and their stories continue on as full scenarios that means that the writing for each faction, and how they're depicted, can become more consistent. People who like writing Andoran factions, and have a good feel for Major Colson Maldris as a character, could write Andoran/Maldris centered scenarios. If a writer isn't really keen on a specific faction then they don't have to think up stuff for them to do.
You could start putting a faction symbol on the outside of scenarios (or indicating in the description). By default, all scenarios would be "Grand Lodge" scenarios. If a specific former faction leader cooks up an adventure to push forward their goals, you could have that faction's symbol there instead. Unaligned characters wouldn't care who they take their mission from. Aligned characters could just skip missions from opposing factions. Knowing in advance would help players decide which character to bring without giving away plot details.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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I never got anything for February in my inbox, either. But I noticed from the postings they put in Paizo. Perhaps this is the biggest flaw with the current factions system; the unreliability of getting the letters to everyone in a timely manner.
I have done some checking and the February email is yet to go out, though it is now pending.
So, we send out emails, we post a Monday blog, and we post the same letters in the Faction message board section.
How else do you propose we get the letters out to everyone that we haven't currently done?
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I like it as it is. Those who are sold on the factions get to keep roleplaying as them, Those who don't can safely ignore them.
What actually excites me more is the ABCD choices we now have to make during scenarios. That has been a welcome source of discussion and roleplaying at tables and I don't think that would have been possible if we had to crowbar faction scenarios in as well.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Also it seems many people either never check or very early uncheck the box for emails from paizo.com. I was one of them, which I remedied after the August mailing.
So, then I will ask again, how else do you propose we get the letters out to everyone that we haven't currently done?
We can't make people read their email. We can't make people check the blog. We can't make people check the message boards. So, how do we get the letter to people who refuse to do any of those three things?
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How else do you propose we get the letters out to everyone that we haven't currently done?
Include a more specific letter in the back of the scenario just for those who have a faction mission in that scenario: something in between the season 4 and season 5 models.
Spell out that DM's are supposed to announce at the start which faction missions go with the scenario they're about to play.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Also it seems many people either never check or very early uncheck the box for emails from paizo.com. I was one of them, which I remedied after the August mailing.So, then I will ask again, how else do you propose we get the letters out to everyone that we haven't currently done?
We can't make people read their email. We can't make people check the blog. We can't make people check the message boards. So, how do we get the letter to people who refuse to do any of those three things?
A big red rubber stamp that says "Not our fault you don't feel involved"?
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For those that want the factions we could introduce a faction vanity:Faction Member:(5 PP) You belong to faction, a subgroup within the society with primary interests and goals that may or may not conflict with the Decemvirate. Your primary loyalty lies with this group and although you will not outright betray the society for them, you nonetheless ensure your faction's goals are furthered when undertaking missions for the society. This loyalty in turn gives you access to special favors, items and vanities that are specific to your faction.
The problem I have with this is that it feels like anybody that wants to play a faction would have to pay prestige so they can pay more prestige. It feels unnecessarily taxing on somebody that wants to represent factions. If you wanted to restrict access to factions, I feel a fame requirement would be kinder to players.
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Also it seems many people either never check or very early uncheck the box for emails from paizo.com. I was one of them, which I remedied after the August mailing.So, then I will ask again, how else do you propose we get the letters out to everyone that we haven't currently done?
We can't make people read their email. We can't make people check the blog. We can't make people check the message boards. So, how do we get the letter to people who refuse to do any of those three things?
Most indeed this is user error. The one and only suggestion I can come up with is to send out the faction letter emails to everyone's Paizo.com account via private messages. This would still not reach the few people who are active in PFS but are not active on the site.
However I cannot fathom the amount of work it would take to implement.In the end, it comes to educating the masses on how to get (or at least get to) the letters. Not everyone watches the blogs or the faction forums. Not Paizo's fault. I know you make it as public as you can without infringing on peoples' privacy or whatever.
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The problem I have with this is that it feels like anybody that wants to play a faction would have to pay prestige so they can pay more prestige. It feels unnecessarily taxing on somebody that wants to represent factions. If you wanted to restrict access to factions, I feel a fame requirement would be kinder to players.
Minimum fame would work too. I like this idea too. It should be a low level of frame, though, so players can jump into a faction early if they want. Just one or two adventures to prove their potential value to the faction.
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Do we seriously need to have this discussion again? There was way to much emphasis on being a member of a faction when there should be more emphasis on being a member of the Pathfinder Society in previous seasons.
I disagree with you 100%. Thus, we are having this discussion again.
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Do we seriously need to have this discussion again? There was way to much emphasis on being a member of a faction when there should be more emphasis on being a member of the Pathfinder Society in previous seasons.I'm not intending to rehash that discussion. What I'm interested in is less whether the new faction mission format is a positive or negative impact of the game, but rather whether the change has affected the number of people playing the various factions, and the amount of investment those players have in their faction storylines.
I want to know if there is a change happening. If so, then we can start talking about whether that change is desirable or not.
In a word, "Yes". As one of the first posters in the thread indicated, it can lead to less role-playing due to less high-lighting of how the PC's might have different (faction-caused) agendas. In my opinion, this has happened in my area.
EDITED: for subject-verb tense agreement
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Mike, is there a page-count cap for the Guide PDF? Couple the faction letters be included there?
The Guide only comes out once a year in August, unless there are some expedited changes we need to make. This year, we are not having a mid-season update. So, the updates to letters released on Feb 6 wouldn't have an opportunity to go into the Guide.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Do we seriously need to have this discussion again? There was way to much emphasis on being a member of a faction when there should be more emphasis on being a member of the Pathfinder Society in previous seasons.I'm not intending to rehash that discussion. What I'm interested in is less whether the new faction mission format is a positive or negative impact of the game, but rather whether the change has affected the number of people playing the various factions, and the amount of investment those players have in their faction storylines.
I want to know if there is a change happening. If so, then we can start talking about whether that change is desirable or not.
In a word, "Yes". As one of the first posters in the thread indicated, it can lead to less role-playing due to less high-lighting of how the PC's might have different (faction-caused) agendas. In my opinion, this has happened in my area.
EDITED: for subject-verb tense agreement
Sure, it *could* lead to that. But, by and large, what we learned from regions around the world is the majority of players were not roleplaying faction missions. They were simply looking at them as making one roll to succeed at a faction mission so they could get their PP. They weren't roleplaying finding the XXXX item to bring back to their faction leader, or weren't copying a text or map to bring back to their faction leader. It was simply, "GM, is this the thing I need to get for my faction mission (while holding up their faction letter). Ok, I roll a 22 on XXX skill." That was the extent to somewhere between 75-80% of feedback I received on all the conventions and game days I attended in 2013.
I'm curious. Please give me an example where a "retrieve the item" faction mission, which by and large was a good percentage of previous season faction missions, can be roleplayed? Of the nearly 200 PFS games I have GMed, I saw it exactly 3 times. I keep seeing people post that it will or has lead to a reduction in roleplaying. But, to be honest, I saw very little roleplaying of faction missions at many tables of PFS I have GMed, and I have GMed in more than 20 states and 10 countries. People are rarely interested in roleplaying at the end of the scenario when they actually return the item or thing back to the faction leader. I tried really hard to do this for Midnight Mauler, as an example, and of the many times I ran it, only once did a group even care about the roleplaying. They wanted their Chronicle so they could go do the next thing at the con.
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Please give me an example where a "retrieve the item" faction mission, which by and large was a good percentage of previous season faction missions, can be roleplayed?
A few good memmories from the find the x.
My first scenario the int 7 Paladin's 1 rank in linguistics being enough to aid another someone over the edge.
The shear confluence of events that had a Druid with knowledge dungeoneering and knowledge nature drop into a pit trap to find someone's fungus.
Someone looking for a plant in a greenhouse 3 times and failing before asking a party with TWO druids in it for help. Who both proceeded to turn his head three feet to the left where the plant was.
Disabling some traps for Osirions.
Stuffing an npc gnome down a hole for (ironically) an andoran faction mission (he had it coming though)
Being lowered into a privy looking for body parts and making friends with the snake inside.
You're not wrong that the majority of them are just roll X fire and forget it. I think the fix for this is to have unique, memorable faction missions that provide role play if they fit the scenario (as you've done in season 5), which is far, far easier to do with the current model with only 1-3 factions having a faction mission per scenario.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Please give me an example where a "retrieve the item" faction mission, which by and large was a good percentage of previous season faction missions, can be roleplayed?A few good memmories from the find the x.
My first scenario the int 7 Paladin's 1 rank in linguistics being enough to aid another someone over the edge.
The shear confluence of events that had a Druid with knowledge dungeoneering and knowledge nature drop into a pit trap to find someone's fungus.
Someone looking for a plant in a greenhouse 3 times and failing before asking a party with TWO druids in it for help. Who both proceeded to turn his head three feet to the left where the plant was.
Disabling some traps for Osirions.
Stuffing an npc gnome down a hole for (ironically) an andoran faction mission (he had it coming though)
Being lowered into a privy looking for body parts and making friends with the snake inside.
You're not wrong that the majority of them are just roll X fire and forget it. I think the fix for this is to have unique, memorable faction missions that provide role play if they fit the scenario (as you've done in season 5), which is far, far easier to do with the current model with only 1-3 factions having a faction mission per scenario.
How do these exemplify roleplaying to get closer to your faction or get to know your faction better, as opposed to awesome gaming moments at the table that have nothing to do with a faction except it was a faction mission that said "recover XXX"? What you have described could have been faction missions by any of the factions, not a specific one, or they could have been just something that happened in a scenario organically without a faction mission to spur it on.
Which then leads me to my question I asked earlier. How did faction missions make a person roleplay their character to become more familiar with their faction or feel one with their faction? I am not seeing it, and when I have asked this question at cons, I still have yet to get a solid answer. Most of the time, the response I get is "My faction leader gave me the mission." When I follow up with the question, "What differentiated it from any other faction mission, or what differentiated it enough that it couldn't have been generic faction mission X from one of the other faction missions," I either get blank stares or "Um, I don't know."
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I think the fix for this is to have unique, memorable faction missions that provide role play if they fit the scenario (as you've done in season 5), which is far, far easier to do with the current model with only 1-3 factions having a faction mission per scenario.
Sounds like the Season 5 faction mission model is working then.
I personally am really enjoying how the few faction missions are really tied tightly to the story of the scenario and the themes of the campaign.
I really was tired of the season 0 through 2 dumpster dive and macguffin hunt missions.
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Do we seriously need to have this discussion again? There was way to much emphasis on being a member of a faction when there should be more emphasis on being a member of the Pathfinder Society in previous seasons.I'm not intending to rehash that discussion. What I'm interested in is less whether the new faction mission format is a positive or negative impact of the game, but rather whether the change has affected the number of people playing the various factions, and the amount of investment those players have in their faction storylines.
I want to know if there is a change happening. If so, then we can start talking about whether that change is desirable or not.
In a word, "Yes". As one of the first posters in the thread indicated, it can lead to less role-playing due to less high-lighting of how the PC's might have different (faction-caused) agendas. In my opinion, this has happened in my area.
EDITED: for subject-verb tense agreement
Sure, it *could* lead to that. But, by and large, what we learned from regions around the world is the majority of players were not roleplaying faction missions. They were simply looking at them as making one roll to succeed at a faction mission so they could get their PP. They weren't roleplaying finding the XXXX item to bring back to their faction leader, or weren't copying a text or map to bring back to their faction leader. It was simply, "GM, is this the thing I need to get for my faction mission (while holding up their faction letter). Ok, I roll a 22 on XXX skill." That was the extent to somewhere between 75-80% of feedback I received on all the conventions and game days I attended in 2013.
I'm curious. Please give me an example where a "retrieve the item" faction mission, which by and large was a good percentage of previous season faction missions, can be roleplayed? Of the nearly...
TO me the problem is the poorly written faction mission that do not encourage roleplay. Now I try to roleplay every faction mission(and sometimes it is not reallly easy), but having a faction mission every scenraio builds on eachother.
The fact that my gnome on numerous occassions had to deal with drugs, and I now play that as a huge part of his story.
I honestly believe people remember what their missions were and accumulate them into their character. Look at how players were becoming disilluisioned in the boards about the andorian specifically major colston.
To say you do not role play the "recover x item" in the scenraios does nto mean they do not add roleplay for the character as a whole. You are looking at a tree and ignoring the forest.
By level 2 you could possibly have 6 different faction related tasks you completed(considering early seasons that have 2) . These tasks give players identity to their faction. This identity gives them fuel for emotions toward said factions.
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Do we seriously need to have this discussion again? There was way to much emphasis on being a member of a faction when there should be more emphasis on being a member of the Pathfinder Society in previous seasons.I'm not intending to rehash that discussion. What I'm interested in is less whether the new faction mission format is a positive or negative impact of the game, but rather whether the change has affected the number of people playing the various factions, and the amount of investment those players have in their faction storylines.
I want to know if there is a change happening. If so, then we can start talking about whether that change is desirable or not.
In a word, "Yes". As one of the first posters in the thread indicated, it can lead to less role-playing due to less high-lighting of how the PC's might have different (faction-caused) agendas. In my opinion, this has happened in my area.
EDITED: for subject-verb tense agreement
Sure, it *could* lead to that. But, by and large, what we learned from regions around the world is the majority of players were not roleplaying faction missions. They were simply looking at them as making one roll to succeed at a faction mission so they could get their PP. They weren't roleplaying finding the XXXX item to bring back to their faction leader, or weren't copying a text or map to bring back to their faction leader. It was simply, "GM, is this the thing I need to get for my faction mission (while holding up their faction letter). Ok, I roll a 22 on XXX skill." That was the extent to somewhere between 75-80% of feedback I received on all the conventions and game days I attended in 2013.
I'm curious. Please give me an example where a "retrieve the item" faction mission, which by and large was a good percentage of previous season faction missions, can
TO me the problem is the poorly written faction mission that do not encourage roleplay. Now I try to roleplay every faction mission(and sometimes it is not reallly easy), but having a faction mission every scenraio builds on eachother.
The fact that my gnome on numerous occassions had to deal with drugs, and I now play that as a huge part of his story.
I honestly believe people remember what their missions were and accumulate them into their character. Look at how players were becoming disilluisioned in the boards about the andorian specifically major colston.
To say you do not role play the "recover x item" in the scenraios does nto mean they do not add roleplay for the character as a whole. You are looking at a tree and ignoring the forest.
By level 2 you could possibly have 6 different faction related tasks you completed(considering early seasons that have 2) . These tasks give players identity to their faction. This identity gives them fuel for emotions toward said factions.
This is a good point.
But does quantity of incidents override quality?
For instance, Wardstone Patrol has one of the best set of integrated faction missions so far in season 5. They really deal with some emotional and passionate stuff.
I would rather have that level of integrated quality to inform me of my character's environmental (vs. Nurture--pre-written backstory) roleplay than 6 macguffin hunts or dumpster dives.
Wouldn't you?
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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TO me the problem is the poorly written faction mission that do not encourage roleplay. Now I try to roleplay every faction mission(and sometimes it is not reallly), but having a faction mission every scenraio builds on eachother.
The fact that my gnome on numerous occassions had to deal with drugs, and I now play that as a huge part of his story.
I honestly believe people remember what their missions were and accumulate them into their character. Look at how players were becoming disilluisioned in the boards about the andorian specifically major colston.
To say you do not role play the "recover x item" in the scenraios does nto mean they do not add roleplay for the character as a whole. You are looking at a tree and ignoring the forest.
By level 2 you could possibly have 6 different faction related tasks you completed(considering early seasons that have 2) . These tasks give players identity to their faction. This identity gives them fuel for emotions toward said factions.
I am most certainly looking at the forest. Over a month period, and GMing 20 or so games, I asked random people what their last 5 faction missions were. I never found out what any characters last 5 faction missions were because no one could remember more than one or two, and that was because they just finished the previous scenario in the last slot. No one remembered what their faction mission was from the scenario they played two months ago.
Every game I ever have GMed, I even ask people if they wish to keep their faction missions so they can catalog everything they have ever done for their faction. I have never had anyone keep it. Your character dealing with drugs has nothing to do with faction missions. I am not even sure why you mentioned that.
You still haven't answered my question. If 4 of my 6 faction missions has me returning item X to my faction leader, and no one ever roleplays the return of item X to the faction leader, all it is a a role to obtain an extra PP. Please explain to me how this gives a player an identity with their faction? The only emotion I ever saw was, "We have to bring back another X. What a waste of time."
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How do these exemplify roleplaying to get closer to your faction or get to know your faction better, as opposed to awesome gaming moments at the table that have nothing to do with a faction except it was a faction mission that said "recover XXX"?
That's a much more specific question.
Some do and some don't. I suppose spoilers are kind of irrelevant since the faction missions are moot...
The translation thing (silver crusade) Highlighted how the western cultural idea of fighting evil with a sword to the face might not go over well in a culture that does good through harmony with its environment.
The body parts in the latrine (silver crusade)- You have to be a really good person to care THAT much for a complete stranger.
The andoran quest was to "go kill this guy". We had three Silver crusade members doing the quest and we had a brief in character moral/ethics discussion including someone with profession lawyer- decided that while what the person did was morally reprehensible, he was acting reasonably based on the information he had. Without the prestige point in the balance it wouldn't have even been a question.
The pull the tongue out faction mission, and getting someone to offer you a dowery missions gave your character a rare chance to be ghoulishly lowdown and ruthless.
You're right that the macguffin quests don't do much most of the time, but the non macguffin quests do. I think season 5 has hit the right balance in the missions themselves: if its a good faction mission it goes in, if its a macguffin add on it doesn't, but the roll out has been a mite difficult.
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Every game I ever have GMed, I even ask people if they wish to keep their faction missions so they can catalog everything they have ever done for their faction. I have never had anyone keep it. Your character dealing with drugs has nothing to do with faction missions. I am not even sure why you mentioned that.
You still haven't answered my question. If 4 of my 6 faction missions has me returning item X to my faction leader, and no one ever roleplays the return of item X to the faction leader, all it is a a role to obtain an extra PP. Please explain to me how this gives a player an identity with their faction? The only emotion I ever saw was, "We have to bring back another X. What a waste of time."
Scazrni has a ton of faction mission related to drugs
You are correct. I never roleplay returning the item. The same reason I never roleplay the day job, or roleplay the travel to certain areas. if is tedious and takes time from more important things. I heavily roleplay acquiring the item if I can.
Maybe I am an exception but I have a good memory of my faciton missions. Now I would again argue the faction mission were presented poorly by either/and/or poor GMing/poor writign of the faction mission.
I admit as a DM I sometimes do not make the faction missions memorable. I should spend more effort on that. That is my fault as a DM.
Now I gaurentee people remember that their factions repeated themes of their faction missions. Things i heard around the table before I knew what a faction was.
Andorian, assassinate someone for freedom.
Cheliax , sexualized request for something
Silver crusade, don't kill people
grand lodge, beat the mission to get the faction mission.
Look on your own faction section of the boards. You see how people define their character by the love letters zarta sends as faction missions. You see people on seeming want to revolt Galt style against major colston. These I honestly believe are fed by faction missions. I honestly do not see how people can not have a character history of their faction having to relate to their faction on every mission.
I also honestly see this type of character defintions less now, and the roleplay part of the boards are less used.
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TO me the problem is the poorly written faction mission that do not encourage roleplay. Now I try to roleplay every faction mission(and sometimes it is not reallly), but having a faction mission every scenraio builds on eachother.
The fact that my gnome on numerous occassions had to deal with drugs, and I now play that as a huge part of his story.
I honestly believe people remember what their missions were and accumulate them into their character. Look at how players were becoming disilluisioned in the boards about the andorian specifically major colston.
To say you do not role play the "recover x item" in the scenraios does nto mean they do not add roleplay for the character as a whole. You are looking at a tree and ignoring the forest.
By level 2 you could possibly have 6 different faction related tasks you completed(considering early seasons that have 2) . These tasks give players identity to their faction. This identity gives them fuel for emotions toward said factions.
I am most certainly looking at the forest. Over a month period, and GMing 20 or so games, I asked random people what their last 5 faction missions were. I never found out what any characters last 5 faction missions were because no one could remember more than one or two, and that was because they just finished the previous scenario in the last slot. No one remembered what their faction mission was from the scenario they played two months ago.
Every game I ever have GMed, I even ask people if they wish to keep their faction missions so they can catalog everything they have ever done for their faction. I have never had anyone keep it. Your character dealing with drugs has nothing to do with faction missions. I am not even sure why you mentioned that.
You still haven't answered my question. If 4 of my 6 faction missions has me returning item X to my faction leader, and no one ever roleplays the return of item X to the faction leader, all it is a a role to obtain an extra PP. Please explain...
I like the new system much better. It will be interesting to see how the sum total of player decisions affects future scenarios/events.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Look on your own faction section of the boards. You see how people define their character by the love letters zarta sends as faction missions. You see people on seeming want to revolt Galt style against major colston. These I honestly believe are fed by faction missions. I honestly do not see how people can not have a character history of their faction having to relate to their faction on every mission.
Let's take your example then, of People wanting a Galt style revolt against Maldris. There have been 142 replies in 10 months. That is hardly blowing anyone away in terms of how active and important it is for folks across the globe. I see more posts than that in one month in the PBP games here.
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When you talk about the players not roleplaying the return of item X to their faction leader, it doesn't feel like there is a good opportunity to do so, unless you wait until the end of he scenario, where time is usually going to be at a premium, if the scenario runs quick, then that gives people a chance, but that isn't always the case, and cramming RP at the end of a scenario when the GM is going to need time to prepare certs and help players take care of any post-scenario stuff they might need to do.
I feel that the problem for season 5 isn't faction missions or the lack thereof, but the hidden secondary success conditions. People liked faction missions because they straight-up told peole how they can assist either the scenario or their faction above and beyond the call of duty, but now there is ambiguity.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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When you talk about the players not roleplaying the return of item X to their faction leader, it doesn't feel like there is a good opportunity to do so, unless you wait until the end of he scenario, where time is usually going to be at a premium, if the scenario runs quick, then that gives people a chance, but that isn't always the case, and cramming RP at the end of a scenario when the GM is going to need time to prepare certs and help players take care of any post-scenario stuff they might need to do.
I feel that the problem for season 5 isn't faction missions or the lack thereof, but the hidden secondary success conditions. People liked faction missions because they straight-up told peole how they can assist either the scenario or their faction above and beyond the call of duty, but now there is ambiguity.
So, you are advising people prefer to be told exactly at what point in the scenario they should make one dice roll, as opposed to actually trying to figure things out on their own? If people just want a faction mission that advises, " Find the ancient, green Osirion jug, scribe down the story it tells, and return that information to me," I'm not sure how finding the ancient green jug, rolling one dice roll and succeeding, and receiving a Chronicle at the end with an extra PP is somehow making the faction mission the springboard for roleplaying. That is the complaint I've heard several times in hypos thread is that the removal of those type of missions has reduced roleplaying of factions, which I still haven't had anyone give me a good answer of how.
And the feedback, by and large from the majority of players, is this exact type of faction mission had grown stale and old after four years, and people wanted something different. Now that there us something different, you advise people liked the store and old they complained for years about.
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Look on your own faction section of the boards. You see how people define their character by the love letters zarta sends as faction missions. You see people on seeming want to revolt Galt style against major colston. These I honestly believe are fed by faction missions. I honestly do not see how people can not have a character history of their faction having to relate to their faction on every mission.Let's take your example then, of People wanting a Galt style revolt against Maldris. There have been 142 replies in 10 months. That is hardly blowing anyone away in terms of how active and important it is for folks across the globe.
One example that is dying because the faction missions are disappearing.
I think the fact that people were so enthralled with the idea of it that they spent the time to role play that is awesome. I personally love those moments.
Now that the faction mission are gone that thread disappeared and the possiblities of other ones like it.
In all honesty faction are gone in season 5. If you are lucky enough or plan your characters around the special faction pieces in the scenarios you can get a bit of it. When you were decding what factions ot dump. People were concerned about losing their faction. Now, i feel few would care. Infact I bet most would hope their faction gets the ax for an awesome chance at a boon.
If that is what you intended to do that is what has happened.
I love the flavor of factions so I personally hate it.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I know that, for me at least, the character's choice of faction often is part of the character hook.
Talyn - Grand Lodge. "By rising in rank in the Grand Lodge, I can address the issues of the Society being murder hobos. 'you can't lead a parade from the rear.'"
Reynard - Silver Crusade, former Shadow Lodge. "The rank and file make up the society, but the sacrifices made are not respected by the Decemberate. Someone must speak up for us."
Mayim - Taldor, former Lantern Lodge. "It was a Pathfinder of Amanandar who freed me. With my debt to him repaid, I now want Taldor to regain its strength, better to deal with my homeland."
Dexios - Silver Crusade. "There's a lot of good that the Society can do, if given the right encouragement. In fact, the best way to bring good is to lead by example."
Just as examples. The factions do serve lots of functions, background, humor, RP opportunities.
As to the faction missions. While it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools, maybe it's that few of the faction missions were rememberable? Indeed, Severing Ties is the one i remember the most, as well as the Andoran faction in Rise of the Goblin Guild.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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Look on your own faction section of the boards. You see how people define their character by the love letters zarta sends as faction missions. You see people on seeming want to revolt Galt style against major colston. These I honestly believe are fed by faction missions. I honestly do not see how people can not have a character history of their faction having to relate to their faction on every mission.Let's take your example then, of People wanting a Galt style revolt against Maldris. There have been 142 replies in 10 months. That is hardly blowing anyone away in terms of how active and important it is for folks across the globe.One example that is dying because the faction missions are disappearing.
I think the fact that people were so enthralled with the idea of it that they spent the time to role play that is awesome. I personally love those moments.
Now that the faction mission are gone that thread disappeared and the possiblities of other ones like it.
In all honesty faction are gone in season 5. If you are lucky enough or plan your characters around the special faction pieces in the scenarios you can get a bit of it. When you were decding what factions ot dump. People were concerned about losing their faction. Now, i feel few would care. Infact I bet most would hope their faction gets the ax for an awesome chance at a boon.
If that is what you intended to do that is what has happened.
I love the flavor of factions so I personally hate it.
At the height of this enthrallment and awesome roleplay you speak of, what is the most number of posts in any one month, when factions were at their highest? I will give you a hint that there isn't one I can find that goes to a second page. So, you personally love those moments that were few and far between, and just weren't that important to the playerbase at large, as evidenced by not only their message board, in-character posts, but also their desire to eagerly roleplay their faction at the gaming table. You can give me one example of players who would, and I can give you first hand table of experience of 10 who didn't. Also, if you follow the Andorn storyline, you will see John is doing a good job of evolving the faction from those very faction missions to where Andpran is going to end up at the end of the season.
Our intention of factions is a fundamental shift to make them better in Season 6. This shift is not something we want to happen abruptly and is why we are allowing people to see this transition through the play of scenarios. It is also why we will have a series of blogs later in the year to explore these changes.
The factions as they were created, and how they evolved, were fundamentally flawed because they kept advocating a shadow war for Absalom that wasn't ever really present, and therefore had extreme limits to how they could evolve organically. All I can ask is you trust that John and I are setting plans into motion to make factions more important, and that they will have more of a dynamic place in the campaign than just, "Retrieve me this ancient key because it will help influence or importance and control in Absalom."
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I love the new faction mission system. I don't know why people are getting confused about the letters/reports - the goals are very basic.
GRAND LODGE - Punish betrayal and ensure every success in preparation for the Mission to Jormurdun.
CHELIAX - Acquire *any* and *every* dark advantage for Zarta Dralneen so that she may ingratiate herself back with House Thrune.
ANDORAN - Do what you can to expose and punish political and legal corruption within Andoran.
OSIRION - Reunite the jewelled sages, so that Amenopheus may ingratiate himself with the Ruby Prince.
QADIRA - War profiteering! Make Money Money Money! Make MONEEEE-EYY! *cash register noise*
SILVER CRUSADE - Strike down the demons. While doing so, act in a way that your choices create a legacy for further generations.
SCZARNI - Do everything possible to stop the assassination attempt on Cousin Guaril Karela.
TALDOR - Amass an Army of Exploration to reignite Taldor's military past.
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I much prefer the fluidity of Season 5 scenarios.
Faction missions for me were always ( I roll X and I get Y if i beat the DC). As most anything in a rp session, it comes down to how far the GM is willing to take you down the faction mission row.
I was never a fan of the 'You need to do X without anyone seeing'. Which was impossible because as soon as a character leaves the group for any reason you get players piping up with the rpg cliche 'Dont split the party!'. Or you have no valid reason to leave the group for a second so X can sleight of hand without you watching up close.
By the same token Ive seen some awesome in game ways people have done faction missions.
( I most miss the early Osirion font which i found awesome: how do I get it ? :) )
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Our intention of factions is a fundamental shift to make them better in Season 6. This shift is not something we want to happen abruptly and is why we are allowing people to see this transition through the play of scenarios. It is also why we will have a series of blogs later in the year to explore these changes.
The factions as they were created, and how they evolved, were fundamentally flawed because they kept advocating a shadow war for Absalom that wasn't ever really present, and therefore had extreme limits to how they could evolve organically. All I can ask is you trust that John and I are setting plans into motion to make factions more important, and that they will have more of a dynamic place in the campaign than just, "Retrieve me this ancient key because it will help influence or importance and control in Absalom."
I appreciate the effort you spend on the game. And maybe me and my friends I often play with are a small minority, but there is a general agreement among us that the direction factions took in season 5 was severly downward. I am sure maybe people would disagree with that. I am making sure our opinion is heard. You have a much broader experience than I.
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I was never a fan of the 'You need to do X without anyone seeing'. Which was impossible because as soon as a character leaves the group for any reason you get players piping up with the rpg cliche 'Dont split the party!'. Or you have no valid reason to leave the group for a second so X can sleight of hand without you watching up close.
I almost miss the moment of "COULD EVERYONE PLEASE MOVE ON SO I CAN TOTALLY NOT DO A FACTION MISSION OR ANYTHING" that would happen for those. :P
So, you are advising people prefer to be told exactly at what point in the scenario they should make one dice roll, as opposed to actually trying to figure things out on their own? If people just want a faction mission that advises, " Find the ancient, green Osirion jug, scribe down the story it tells, and return that information to me," I'm not sure how finding the ancient green jug, rolling one dice roll and succeeding, and receiving a Chronicle at the end with an extra PP is somehow making the faction mission the springboard for roleplaying. That is the complaint I've heard several times in hypos thread is that the removal of those type of missions has reduced roleplaying of factions, which I still haven't had anyone give me a good answer of how.
It took a while and some discussion to figure out what was so great (yet annoying) about the old faction missions. In preparing scenarios, I won't even begin to count how many (in every tier) DC 25 linguistics, DC 18 Slight of Hand, DC 20 Know. Planes, faction missions I've come across. When I compare how I built my first characters to how I build characters now, the difference is in the skills.
My first couple characters felt the sting of not having ranks in trained only skills that were used for faction missions. As soon as they could, they invested in them. "Who knew Taldor wanted me to know different languages? In order to promote Taldor, I'll be sure to be smarter. If I'm met with a mission like this again, I'll be better prepared." or "I failed the Sczarni because I couldn't quietly plant this book. Since I now understand they value this skill, I'll be sure I can make a better attempt at it next time." The faction missions encouraged skill development in my characters (and in other characters I've seen around the local circuit) in ways the current secondary success conditions can't. (I can't speak for the current faction missions as I literally do not have a character in level range for their corresponding scenario.)
The faction missions that were supposed to be secret (season 2, I think?) especially encouraged individual development. As soon that missions became less private, they became a "anyone got diplomacy and would that person be willing to do my mission for me?" Most of the faction missions I encountered when I began play were the "secret" mission kind, and that mentality spilled over into all the seasons to the point where, at least with our local group, no one did other peoples' faction missions.
I guess the random roll this trained only skill was something I kind of liked. It taught the importance of a well-rounded character.
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The problem I have with this is that it feels like anybody that wants to play a faction would have to pay prestige so they can pay more prestige. It feels unnecessarily taxing on somebody that wants to represent factions. If you wanted to restrict access to factions, I feel a fame requirement would be kinder to players.
For those that want the factions we could introduce a faction vanity:Faction Member:(5 PP) You belong to faction, a subgroup within the society with primary interests and goals that may or may not conflict with the Decemvirate. Your primary loyalty lies with this group and although you will not outright betray the society for them, you nonetheless ensure your faction's goals are furthered when undertaking missions for the society. This loyalty in turn gives you access to special favors, items and vanities that are specific to your faction.
Who said anything about restricting factions? I put that out here as an OPTION if the factions went away in their current format. As for the prestige cost - chalk up the prestige cost as a representation of the effort made to make the connections within the faction and keep your affiliation secret.
This option allowed you to still be part of a faction. In fact taking this idea a step further and we could open up many of the factions in the Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide: Imagine some of the following factions and the benefits they provide being opened up to PFS: Arcanamirium, Aspis Consortium , Bellflower Network , Bloodstone Swords , Church of Razmir ,Eagle Knights , Green Faith, Hellknights, Kitharodian Academy, Kusari-Gama ,Lantern Bearers, Lion Blades, Mendev Crusaders, Ninth Battalion, Old Cults, Pathfinder Society, Prophets of Kalistrade, Red Mantis Assassins, Religious Factions, Risen Guard, Shackles Pirates, Ulfen Guard, Varisian Wanderers, Whispering Way, Cult of Lissala, Onyx Alliance, etc
I'm providing options and alternatives to appease all sides of the argument.
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The problem I have with this is that it feels like anybody that wants to play a faction would have to pay prestige so they can pay more prestige. It feels unnecessarily taxing on somebody that wants to represent factions. If you wanted to restrict access to factions, I feel a fame requirement would be kinder to players.
For those that want the factions we could introduce a faction vanity:Faction Member:(5 PP) You belong to faction, a subgroup within the society with primary interests and goals that may or may not conflict with the Decemvirate. Your primary loyalty lies with this group and although you will not outright betray the society for them, you nonetheless ensure your faction's goals are furthered when undertaking missions for the society. This loyalty in turn gives you access to special favors, items and vanities that are specific to your faction.
Who said anything about restricting factions? I put that out here as an OPTION if the factions went away in their current format. As for the prestige cost - chalk up the prestige cost as a representation of the effort made to make the connections within the faction and keep your affiliation secret.
This option allowed you to still be part of a faction. In fact taking this idea a step further and we could open up many of the factions in the Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide: Imagine some of the following factions and the benefits they provide being opened up to PFS: Arcanamirium, Aspis Consortium , Bellflower Network , Bloodstone Swords , Church of Razmir ,Eagle Knights , Green Faith, Hellknights, Kitharodian Academy, Kusari-Gama ,Lantern Bearers, Lion Blades, Mendev Crusaders, Ninth Battalion, Old Cults, Pathfinder Society, Prophets of Kalistrade, Red Mantis Assassins, Religious Factions, Risen Guard, Shackles Pirates, Ulfen Guard, Varisian Wanderers, Whispering Way, Cult of Lissala, Onyx Alliance, etc
I'm providing options and alternatives to appease...
The problem is that by putting a PP cost on it you are restricting access to factions, plain and simple. And a fair number of those organizations you listed tend to be evil, like the Aspis, Red Mantis, Whispering Way, and the Cult of Lissala, who we fought all through season 4. And some of those you can join through vanities in the Field Guide.
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I almost miss the moment of "COULD EVERYONE PLEASE MOVE ON SO I CAN TOTALLY NOT DO A FACTION MISSION OR ANYTHING" that would happen for those. :P
The best one for me was Rivalry's End at PaizoCon, when the Shadow Lodge union representative called a union meeting and asked all the non-Shadow Lodge Pathfinders to step out of the room while 'union business' was discussed.
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I almost miss the moment of "COULD EVERYONE PLEASE MOVE ON SO I CAN TOTALLY NOT DO A FACTION MISSION OR ANYTHING" that would happen for those. :PThe best one for me was Rivalry's End at PaizoCon, when the Shadow Lodge union representative called a union meeting and asked all the non-Shadow Lodge Pathfinders to step out of the room while 'union business' was discussed.
Have doughnuts. Gets to stay. In bylaws. Section 12 paragraph 76.
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At the height of this enthrallment and awesome roleplay you speak of, what is the most number of posts in any one month, when factions were at their highest? I will give you a hint that there isn't one I can find that goes to a second page.
Also, I would suggest not dragging the faction boards into this. I recall discussing this issue, months ago. The problem with the faction boards is that participants have nothing to talk about. Anything we could talk about quickly becomes spoiler territory. It's as if Fight Club held a company picnic.
Anyways, to chip in, I got turned off by the Season 5 changes, so I haven't really played scenarios in awhile; I've just been playing in an awesome high-level group. I just lost interest in the new way.
I would suggest that PFS should either make factions awesome and have them be the centerpiece of the campaign, or dump them entirely and incorporate something like June Soler's idea. No more of these years of transition towards something unknown that the campaign has been stuck in since Season 3.
-Matt
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At the height of this enthrallment and awesome roleplay you speak of, what is the most number of posts in any one month, when factions were at their highest? I will give you a hint that there isn't one I can find that goes to a second page.Also, I would suggest not dragging the faction boards into this. I recall demonstrating their problems, and it did not have to do with lack of desire.
-Matt
I think that's the exception that proves the rule.