Global Organized Play Coordinator
|
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
Congrats. You found the only instance of such in 18 months. My point still stands. Also, I didn't drag it into the discussion. I answered a post about them that was brought up by someone else.
If you haven't played any, or only one, season 5 scenarios, then being turned off by what was changed is just you theorizing that it is bad instead of actually giving it a try to see if it is bad or not. I need actual experience, not suppositions and theories.
And thanks for the suggestion, but I think we will proceed with the changes in factions for season 6 that we've already set in motion in season 5, and that you haven't even really tried out because you decided it was bad and moved on before the season really got started.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I kind of miss having a better opportunity to fail faction missions with Garble. Poor little guy was getting about 1.1 PP per game til Seaon 5. "Goblin, go draw me a picture of this house in town." *returns with a picture of a burning house and dead people and dogs that looks like a 5 year old drew* "WHAT IS THIS?" GM: "uh... Roll a Knowl..." Me: "No."
|
There was another problem with the old faction missions that is being forgotten. For half the factions, if you were playing a scenario from season 0-2, you weren't doing your faction's mission. You were doing one of the original 5 factions' missions. My Lantern Lodge ninja almost certainly did more Qadiran missions than Lantern Lodge missions, just by the nature of me playing a lot of older scenarios with her. In fact, I still wonder if she's done more Taldan missions since converting after the Lantern Lodge was retired than LL missions. So it was difficult to connect with the Lantern Lodge for quite a while, because I wasn't doing anything for the LL.
Now, for my own enjoyment, since most of the Qadiran missions involved negotiating trade, I would roleplay it as promoting trade between Tian Xia and the Inner Sea. But that was something I did on my own, because it's the only way I could connect the character to her faction. I had to put ranks in Appraise or I'd never succeed at any faction missions.
Sadly, the most memorable of the old faction missions were the ones that I remember because they were frustratingly out of character or I failed them. Spoilers for space, mostly. Details of missions, but no scenarios named.
Season 4 was better about faction missions (I know one of my examples from above is from Season 4, but it was just a particularly bad one, not emblematic of the whole season). Rise of the Goblin Guild, for example, had several faction missions that promoted role playing. But even in that scenario, they were for the most part completely separate from the scenario. Along the lines of, "You have time before the actual mission begins, so split up and get that faction stuff out of the way."
I much prefer the direction things are heading with Season 5. They haven't all been perfect, but they've felt much more natural in the course of the scenarios, and the extra time having fewer faction missions allows for the regular missions really helps. I'd prefer that when a faction is featured in a scenario, it occasionally be more directly featured, as Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge were in Way of the Kirin and Rivalry's End (but without the faction going away), or how Cheliax was in the string of scenarios related to it in season 4. I'm not convinced that isn't coming, though, in some of the scenarios in the second half of Season 5.
|
Thinking on it a bit more, I do like the way that the scenarios in Season Five have played out. They've all been very well written, and the secondaries in them feel natural. They feel like stuff that Pathfinders should be doing anyways. There are some older scenarios I have played since August where that wasn't the case. But season five so far has been generally excellent. It's been somewhat difficult to have my characters play in scenarios that have content for their factions.
In my case this is from someone that has only played in a few scenarios before August, and have played heavily since then in an effort to catch up with friends. The handful of faction missions I got to play seemed pretty good, but it is admittedly a limited pool of experience and a different perspective from a lot of other people in this thread.
|
|
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.
To be honest, my experience with faction missions says just the opposite.
Then again, I rapidly got tired of faction missions that did any one or more of the following:
Gave information of something you run into that isn't obvious from the VC briefing (Bring me back a Harpy feather)
Asked you to kill the big bad (kill the bard named such-and-so, and it turns out that you would have killed him anyhow)
Find X item (Waaaaaaaaaaaay too many of those)
There were a few unusual ones, but even they were frequently buried by scenario mechanics or a cliched second mission (Intimidate this guy to get him to never come to Almas again, while the other mission says not to kill anyone who has been dominated by an outsider, while no one in the scenareio was dominated by an outsider) And that scenario was more interesting because we had to deal with being banned from going into the area where the scenario was happening...
|
|
I am mostly concerned with the disconnect with your factions in the new scenarios.
I do not pick a character for the doons that are offered. I play what character I have for the level and party makeup that is needed.
I have played all of season 5 except the confirmation and the two new ones(those I am scheduled for in 8 days). I have all but 6 in my downloads. So I am pretty famalair with everything.
I would honestly appreciate a bigger conection to my faction in each scenario. I know it is not easy to do this and the faction missions were flawed. That is something I want as a customer of paizo. If the factions are just random things(which they are now to the play style I use). I would rather not have them at all. My post season 5 character I feel no connection to the faction they represent at all. I strongly hate how now the old scenario faction missions are optional so the GMs usually do not allow you to do them or bring material for them. I would gladly do them meaning it costs me resources just for that roleplay connection for my characters.
Currently my view on the new faction related events are extremely not positive, but I will wait until season 5 is done and I see the culmination before I comment further. I would say these changes would not yet stop me from playing/purchasing products, but definately made me consider spending my money other places for future gaming expenses.
|
I would honestly appreciate a bigger conection to my faction in each scenario. I know it is not easy to do this and the faction missions were flawed. That is something I want as a customer of paizo
I just don't think this is possible to do EVERY time in a scenario. Its too many disparate elements to jam together in one story, thats why you were getting random macguffin requests to fill in the blank.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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...
I think the main thing faction missions did to make us feel part of the faction was giving a voice to the faction leaders. Having the little notes/letters delivered at the start of every mission gave us a real flavor for who the faction leader was and was a good reminder of the way each faction operates.
I agree that "retrieve XXX item" missions are mostly boring and don't really help. That said, some of the more interesting missions are really engaging and give a good connection to the faction. For example, look at the Sczarni missions from the Quest for Perfection series.
On Hostile Waters: Retrieve the item. More flavorful than some, but still not really interesting.
Defenders of Nesting Swallow: This mission was fantastic! Trying to squeeze gold out of the starving peasants is just the sort of skeezy thing I love about Sczarni, and prompts the players to make some nicely morally-gray choices. It can also spark some nice RP opportunities between PCs.
I know that interesting missions that promote RP are difficult to come up with. And even if we did, having eight of them in one scenario would almost certainly rob too much time from the primary mission. However, the up-side is that there is *some* faction-specific thing in each scenario played.
In Season 5, most players can simply forget about factions entirely for about 3/4 of the scenarios a character will play. I do think we lose something by not having those hooks back to the factions come up as often. However, we gain more time for the primary mission, and when faction-specific stuff does come up it's more interesting and better-integrated with the ongoing plotlines. Whether that is worth it is a matter for debate. Which is why I created this thread :-)
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
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.
Just wanted to give Matt some props for this excellent sentence. What a flawless use of the English language.
|
i love the new style of faction missions and how they give deeply roleplay opportunities of trying hard to really go above to do what is better for the faction. Why only what give you something mechanically should be your faction missions ? My Scazarni is there doing things all the scenarios, Guaril Karella rewarding him or not. I didn't play, as a player, a season 5 scenario yet, but i already put on the new spirit on the scenarios i have played after the new system got up. Some players even create faction missions for themselves (without reward) when his faction wasn't involved in the scenario and i try to roleplay the results (the silver crusaders and andorans love that).
|
Up until season 5 I at least knew which characters at the table were which factions (always as GM, usually as a player).
Now I almost never know, even in the reasonably rare season 5 scenarios I run or play.
Whatever the goal or rationale, the fact of the matter is that factions are now nearly irrelevant.
Except to arbitrarily STOP my character from getting a reward they should have. Some of the Season 5 boons have absolutely no in world reason to be applied only to members of a particular faction. Eg, the Silver Crusade boon from Wardstone Patrol. The boon was minor, but it definitely irked me that the Silver Crusader got it and my character didn't despite the fact that it was my character who was mostly responsible for the group accomplishing the required task.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The boon was minor, but it definitely irked me that the Silver Crusader got it and my character didn't despite the fact that it was my character who was mostly responsible for the group accomplishing the required task.
I think this point may be addressed in the Season 6 changes.
I wonder if it won't be that 'which boons you earn determines which faction you are' instead of 'which faction you are determines which boons you earn'.
Edit: Whoa, I think I just blew my own mind on that one. You don't pick a faction at character creation, you look at what boons you've earned and that tells you your standing in each one. Earn enough boons and you can buy that factions vanities. Kind of like how...
|
|
I wonder if it won't be that 'which boons you earn determines which faction you are' instead of 'which faction you are determines which boons you earn'.
Edit: Whoa, I think I just blew my own mind on that one. You don't pick a faction at character creation, you look at what boons you've earned and that tells you your standing in each one. Earn enough boons and you can buy that factions vanities. Kind of like how...
That is a really cool idea, I really like this. "You want to be a member of the Silver Crusade? Cool, go out there and act like one." It makes the boons feel a lot less limited and I feel that it would encourage people to make their roleplaying fall more in line with whatever faction they should choose.
|
|
Here's what I like about the new style of faction "missions". They're not missions. There's no directive to find the MacGuffin and bring it back. Instead, you're given general faction goals. You get some letters telling you what they're interested in.
Then you go into a scenario and if (or really, when, since you come in with the meta knowledge of whether your antennae should be up) you find (or the opportunity to do) something your faction needs, you take action.
You're roleplaying your familiarity and allegience to your faction. You didn't figure that your faction would be interested in new trade partners? Then maybe you're not a very good Qadiran. You don't immediately try to free every slave you encounter? Consider switching out of Andoran.
I like that things aren't so cut and dry anymore. They require more thought than following a direct order. Yes, some are perhaps more opaque than they should be. Yes, some rely too much on GMs providing the proper hint. But I consider those bugs in execution rather than a problem with the system.
|
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
That is a really cool idea, I really like this. "You want to be a member of the Silver Crusade? Cool, go out there and act like one." It makes the boons feel a lot less limited and I feel that it would encourage people to make their roleplaying fall more in line with whatever faction they should choose.I wonder if it won't be that 'which boons you earn determines which faction you are' instead of 'which faction you are determines which boons you earn'.
Edit: Whoa, I think I just blew my own mind on that one. You don't pick a faction at character creation, you look at what boons you've earned and that tells you your standing in each one. Earn enough boons and you can buy that factions vanities. Kind of like how...
I love this idea. I'm a little worried that some players might game the system and try to collect all the boons, though. I think you would need to set up some way to prevent that, maybe by making some of them mutually exclusive.
|
|
I could see that, maybe earning high enough standing in one faction decreases your standing with another faction. Say my character is being super Chelaxian, maybe the Andorans don't want anything to do with me anymore, or something to that extent. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some factions whose general inerests seem to line up. And I could see synergy between some factions be reflected in having some boons count for more than one faction.
|
|
Just updated the Season 5 Faction Letters sticky with the mid-season updates. Sorry for the delay.
On a few other notes...
I've never received a faction letter, nor do I know where to find them. Where are they?
This may be the best evidence that my efforts are for naught...
I kind of miss having a better opportunity to fail faction missions with Garble. Poor little guy was getting about 1.1 PP per game til Seaon 5. "Goblin, go draw me a picture of this house in town." *returns with a picture of a burning house and dead people and dogs that looks like a 5 year old drew* "WHAT IS THIS?" GM: "uh... Roll a Knowl..." Me: "No."
This made me absolutely laugh out loud...
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.
I kept the Faction Missions for each of the first 3 PFS games I ever played. On the back of each I made notes about the session, and on the front I wrote down where we found each item. I thought it was fun.
When I tried to do that during my 4th game, the GM told me not to, because he needed them for the next slot he was running. So I didn't, and I handed it back to him after the game. The player next to me reaffirmed this by saying that you're not supposed to keep the missions, else the GM would have to reprint them after each scenario.
It made me sad, but I complied, and I continued to write down my notes on the back of the previous game's Chronicle sheet instead. I still do that to this day, and it makes a nice catalog of everything I've ever done with each character. I even write down funny quotes or epic crits.
But I can't recall any other players doing the same, so my experience is certainly not the norm.
|
Nefreet,
...Really? That's like saying you can copy the Chronicle sheet, but don't keep it so the GM doesn't have to print it again. They're called Handouts, not Handbacks. Silly GM... I would always let my players keep their faction missions. Granted, over half would hand them back. But if I were running a scenario multiple times I would always make sure to have extras. That's just being prepared!
|
|
Writing notes on the back of my Chronicle Sheets now gives me way more space. And I would have had to adapt eventually anyways, since nobody hands out Factions Missions anymore.
Which is also why when the ITS was initially being rolled out, and some GMs were advocating just printing them on the back of the Chronicle Sheet, my response was an adamant "no!", lol.
|
|
One more point before I go out to run errands:
Earlier someone was saying that the Grand Lodge has become the Faction of choice for new players, and even that GMs are going out of their way to suggest it because "factions don't matter".
I was initially suspicious of this, but after copying and pasting each mid-season update from their respective sections I have to say that Grand Lodge had by far the most replies of any Faction, and probably half had none.
I just wonder if that's because Grand Lodge has always had the most members, or because of the recent trend to suggest it.
|
|
I haven't responded to any of the threads simply because, well, I don't know what to say. I am saddened at the turn for Andoran, but there's little I can do about it without another freedom-fighter character (my one and only has turned 12. They grow up so fast!).
I really do like factions, I really do. It just needs to be figured how to incorporate them. It might turn into everyone gets a boon for this scenario.
OO! Like a "You completed this mission, you get a +2 to this skill if you're Andoran, that skill if you're Chelaxian, this CMB if your Taldan, blah blah blah." That way there is some reason to be a faction and everyone gets a small something for everything. Not saying they all have to have a +2, it could be a generic "this may come into play later" type thing. And it would be over a slew of bonuses, not always an Appraise for Sczarni or Sleight of Hand for Qadira.
Rambling. Sorry.
|
|
I don't know if anyone has brought this up or if it is actually a thing, but it seems to me that with each scenario tied to particular factions that you would see more parties comprised of only members from those factions. For example: (season 4 not season 5, but a good example of this style) Rivalry's End was tied to the Shadow Lodge and it would not have surprised me in the least to have seen A LOT of tables that were made up of only Shadow Lodge players. While this may add a bit to roleplaying a character because everything you do with this character adds to his or her storyline, it also takes away because you don't get to see things like the drama that can unfold by having a Chelaxian and an Andoran at the same table. Or a Silver Crusade and a Sczarni. Or a Taldor and an anybody. It also takes away from getting attached to a character and advancing his personality because in the next scenario released his faction doesn't play a part, so just play a character whose does. Logically the best thing to do would be to play only characters that can advance a specific factions storyline in a particular scenario. That's my take on the new "faction mission" style and I may be completely off base.
|
|
The boon was minor, but it definitely irked me that the Silver Crusader got it and my character didn't despite the fact that it was my character who was mostly responsible for the group accomplishing the required task.I think this point may be addressed in the Season 6 changes.
I wonder if it won't be that 'which boons you earn determines which faction you are' instead of 'which faction you are determines which boons you earn'.
Edit: Whoa, I think I just blew my own mind on that one. You don't pick a faction at character creation, you look at what boons you've earned and that tells you your standing in each one. Earn enough boons and you can buy that factions vanities. Kind of like how...
** spoiler omitted **
Also, this sounds like it would make the organized play system SO much more fun.
|
|
I don't know if anyone has brought this up or if it is actually a thing, but it seems to me that with each scenario tied to particular factions that you would see more parties comprised of only members from those factions. For example: (season 4 not season 5, but a good example of this style) Rivalry's End was tied to the Shadow Lodge and it would not have surprised me in the least to have seen A LOT of tables that were made up of only Shadow Lodge players. While this may add a bit to roleplaying a character because everything you do with this character adds to his or her storyline, it also takes away because you don't get to see things like the drama that can unfold by having a Chelaxian and an Andoran at the same table. Or a Silver Crusade and a Sczarni. Or a Taldor and an anybody. It also takes away from getting attached to a character and advancing his personality because in the next scenario released his faction doesn't play a part, so just play a character whose does. Logically the best thing to do would be to play only characters that can advance a specific factions storyline in a particular scenario. That's my take on the new "faction mission" style and I may be completely off base.
Locally, at least, I haven't seen this happening. For the most part, people here just play what they have in tier. But we may just not have a large enough community to stack a table. With 20-30 people on a game day and 3-4 tables, people play what they can when they can. The boons (unlike with Rivalry's End) aren't so great that anyone seems to feel they are worth skipping a game or going out of their way to make sure they have the right character in tier. The events in Rivalry's End and Way of the Kirin were also a lot more important for those factions, so it makes sense everyone would try to play with the appropriate character.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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...
They let you get to know the minds working behind the factions better. For example, I know that Paracountess Zarta Dralin is (or was) a little bit kinky. When you don't see your faction leader every scenario you don't get to know what members of that faction are like. Without the faction missions, when you actually see your faction leader it takes longer for it to click that the person you are talking to is the leader of your faction. With the faction missions you knew when the person sending you out was your leader and you feel like you should interact with them more than when they are some random person reading you box text. In getting to know the leaders, you are getting to know the faction and in getting to know the faction you are getting to know your character. At least that's my answer. I may not know exactly what my faction mission was from five scenarios ago, but I know that Zarta asked me to do it for her and that afterwords she made me feel special. The faction missions made you feel like you were actually a part of your faction instead of just another pathfinder.
|
|
I don't know if anyone has brought this up or if it is actually a thing, but it seems to me that with each scenario tied to particular factions that you would see more parties comprised of only members from those factions. For example: (season 4 not season 5, but a good example of this style) Rivalry's End was tied to the Shadow Lodge and it would not have surprised me in the least to have seen A LOT of tables that were made up of only Shadow Lodge players. While this may add a bit to roleplaying a character because everything you do with this character adds to his or her storyline, it also takes away because you don't get to see things like the drama that can unfold by having a Chelaxian and an Andoran at the same table. Or a Silver Crusade and a Sczarni. Or a Taldor and an anybody. It also takes away from getting attached to a character and advancing his personality because in the next scenario released his faction doesn't play a part, so just play a character whose does. Logically the best thing to do would be to play only characters that can advance a specific factions storyline in a particular scenario. That's my take on the new "faction mission" style and I may be completely off base.Locally, at least, I haven't seen this happening. For the most part, people here just play what they have in tier. But we may just not have a large enough community to stack a table. With 20-30 people on a game day and 3-4 tables, people play what they can when they can. The boons (unlike with Rivalry's End) aren't so great that anyone seems to feel they are worth skipping a game or going out of their way to make sure they have the right character in tier. The events in Rivalry's End and Way of the Kirin were also a lot more important for those factions, so it makes sense everyone would try to play with the appropriate character.
Thank you, I've been curious about that since they announced the changes. I have only recently gotten back in (after waiting patiently for the Confirmation to hit so I could make "the ideal pathfinder") and played only a few of the season 5 scenarios so I wasn't sure if that was a thing or not. I'm glad its not.