Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I don't believe that it counts as a special for any purposes.
It was originally intended to be that way, but after some further consideration campaign management felt that it was too important a scenario to make it hard for anybody to get a chance to play it as early in season 6 as possible. As a result it was opened up so that anyone could run it (even a no-star GM at a single-table game day)
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I don't believe that it counts as a special for any purposes.It was originally intended to be that way, but after some further consideration campaign management felt that it was too important a scenario to make it hard for anybody to get a chance to play it as early in season 6 as possible. As a result it was opened up so that anyone could run it (even a no-star GM at a single-table game day)
That would be my guess as well. Still, would be nice to have confirmation on that.
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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I don't believe that it counts as a special for any purposes.It was originally intended to be that way, but after some further consideration campaign management felt that it was too important a scenario to make it hard for anybody to get a chance to play it as early in season 6 as possible. As a result it was opened up so that anyone could run it (even a no-star GM at a single-table game day)
^this
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^this
I don't believe that it counts as a special for any purposes.It was originally intended to be that way, but after some further consideration campaign management felt that it was too important a scenario to make it hard for anybody to get a chance to play it as early in season 6 as possible. As a result it was opened up so that anyone could run it (even a no-star GM at a single-table game day)
So even the first run of it at Gen Con doesn't count as a special?
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Global Organized Play Coordinator
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So even the first run of it at Gen Con doesn't count as a special?^this
I don't believe that it counts as a special for any purposes.It was originally intended to be that way, but after some further consideration campaign management felt that it was too important a scenario to make it hard for anybody to get a chance to play it as early in season 6 as possible. As a result it was opened up so that anyone could run it (even a no-star GM at a single-table game day)
No
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Well that's incredibly disappointing. Paths We Choose had a number of important plot developments for organized play and a Special status created an incentive for GMs to make sure all their available players got a chance to play it. Not to mention all the convention season supporter GMs who decided to run it as much as possible as they believed they were earning Special credit.
I guess PFS GMs better get back to work coaxing PFS players back into every available level of Bonekeep instead? :/ Yeesh.
Really hoping this decision gets another discussion to decide if this is the best route to take.
Maybe a Paths GM credit deadline could be a more elegant solution?
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So to recap:
We got Bonekeep 1 as the four star special this year, an adventure that only appeals to a subset of PFS players and had already been played by many of the players it did appeal to.
Then we got an extra GenCon special, only now we find out it wasn't actually a special. (full disclosure: I didn't run that at Gen Con, I was planning to run it at a local con)
Man, this year sucked to try and hit 5 stars.
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Well that's incredibly disappointing. Paths We Choose had a number of important plot developments for organized play and a Special status created an incentive for GMs to make sure all their available players got a chance to play it. Not to mention all the convention season supporter GMs who decided to run it as much as possible as they believed they were earning Special credit.
I guess PFS GMs better get back to work coaxing PFS players back into every available level of Bonekeep instead? :/ Yeesh.
Really hoping this decision gets another discussion to decide if this is the best route to take.
Maybe a Paths GM credit deadline could be a more elegant solution?
I can't help but note the Kobayashi Maru social corner ya'll are putting Mike and John into on this one... first they made it the special for this year (even though I know from experience that putting out extra scenarios beyond the regular monthly amounts is incredibly taxing), and people begged for it to not be special so it can be run in a more timely/regular fashion to coincide with the faction changes themselves at the end of season 5 and start of season 6. They consulted, took player opinions and calls into account, and said sure.
...now, with (as far as I know) zero people having said "no don't do that" before they were flooded with requests specifically to do this, people are complaining that they shouldn't have?
The "discussion to decide" happened before GenCon, people. Can't have things both ways.
Some suggestion/solutions (instead of griping without suggesting anything constructive) -
1 - Find people who *do* want to play Bonekeep and run 'em through it.
2 - "Year of the Shadow Lodge", "Blood Under Absalom", "Race for the Runecarved Key", "Siege of the Diamond City", and "Legacy of the Stonelords" are all still valid scenarios to earn "special/exclusive" credit as well. At GenCon alone we gave out, what, over 1700 new PFS numbers? Surely there are gamers in your area who haven't played some of the older specials - put a game day or local convention together and make it a special event for multiple GMs to get involved with!
But, seriously... we (the collective we, not the royal we) really need to lay off Mike and John on this one - they did precisely as the community asked, nothing more.
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Man, this year sucked to try and hit 5 stars.
I agree, it is not as easy this year as it was last year.
However, as said above, you have five multi-table specials available to organize and run. The Online Collective is running Legacy of the Stonelords at Aethercon next month, and I had to drop out as GM. So check and see if they need a replacement and if it will work for your schedule. Best of luck to you!
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Where's the Kobayashi Maru?
Where is the PFS crowd who are allegedly going to be vocally annoyed if Paths remains a Special?
Are you suggesting that 5-star GMs would be annoyed that 4-star GMs are getting too many opportunities to jump through hoops?
1700 new numbers at GenCon doesn't help international PFS.
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Kobiyashi Maru, the no win situation. Mike and John do what the community asks, only to be lampooned by the community after the fact for the consequences of having done it.
Point on the international aspect - I didn't think about that.
Frankly, I can't speak for any GMs other than myself, stars or no stars. I don't GM or volunteer for stars, so if earning the fifth star is a real point of contention here, I'll be more than happy to relinquish mine if it somehow helped create more opportunities for others - maybe a need to "re-qualify" for it or something, and relaxing of the special/exclusive requirement since exclusives might no longer be a thing.
The point I'm trying to make is that griping at Mike and John about decisions made months ago after receiving input from the PFS community (without making constructive suggestions on how to overcome the situation we're in short of "change your minds!") isn't really helpful for anyone.
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Where's the Kobayashi Maru?The haranguing of the campaign staff for doing exactly what people asked them to do.
That being said, I completely support Paths being classified as a season special.
If I remember correctly, what was being asked was the removal of any sort of table minimum requirement, not that it be removed from Special status, so that even smaller areas could run it for people. Some of us would have trouble getting more than a single table together, and most of us agreed that this should be something that even a small PFS group should be able to experience.
And, to be honest, I thought John's agreement was that it would have the table requirement removed, but stay classified as a Special. I guess I misinterpreted that.
I still have yet to be able to afford to purchase it, or run it, so it doesn't much matter to me. I have a long way to go to get into the consideration area for 5 star, anyhow.
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People asked the coordination team to loosen restrictions on running the scenario.
They didn't ask the coordination team to remove the Special status.
That's part of what the special is. Specials are convention-only for the first year, and relaxing that requirement means removing the special status.
We can certainly ask for an exception in this case, but it is still an exception.
And, to be honest, I thought John's agreement was that it would have the table requirement removed, but stay classified as a Special. I guess I misinterpreted that.
You know, I kind of misinterpreted that myself, but then I wasn't really thinking about it. I was just happy to be able to play it outside of a con. (And then I ended up playing it twice at Strategicon. Go figure.)
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Kobiyashi Maru, the no win situation.
Except that Kirk beat the Kobiyashi Maru by changing the rules.
Suggestion: If people are that worried that making it a special available to everybody would damage PFS, then make it count when 5 tables of it happen simultaneously.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Alex:
The scenario doesn't do anything special if multiple tables are being run simultaneously, so I don't really see the value of making it count as special in that case.
Context: here in the Netherlands we have a healthy and growing PFS community, but we're nowhere near the 15-table Con requirement that was floating around previously. Our most recent, highly successful Con was 8 tables over three days, which required some creative work to get everyone seated.
So we'd never be able to earn Special status that way, even though we're totally acting in good faith. If other people elsewhere can get that status by doing nothing different from us, just at a bigger scale, that seems a bit unfair. Not a huge injury, just a little unfair. And just strange, given that the scenario doesn't actually do anything with multiple tables like the Siege of the Diamond City.
I'm really glad about the previous decision to open up the scenario to any size event, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to play it. And it was nice to get to play it at the start of the season.
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@Alex:
The scenario doesn't do anything special if multiple tables are being run simultaneously, so I don't really see the value of making it count as special in that case.
Context: here in the Netherlands we have a healthy and growing PFS community, but we're nowhere near the 15-table Con requirement that was floating around previously. Our most recent, highly successful Con was 8 tables over three days, which required some creative work to get everyone seated.
So we'd never be able to earn Special status that way, even though we're totally acting in good faith. If other people elsewhere can get that status by doing nothing different from us, just at a bigger scale, that seems a bit unfair. Not a huge injury, just a little unfair. And just strange, given that the scenario doesn't actually do anything with multiple tables like the Siege of the Diamond City.
I'm really glad about the previous decision to open up the scenario to any size event, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to play it. And it was nice to get to play it at the start of the season.
To run most of the specials, it requires 3-5 tables playing at the same time. The exact number required depends on which special is being run. This does make it harder in smaller PFS areas to get to 10 tables worth of "specials" for 5 stars...but it would also make it that much harder to get to 150 tables needed overall as well.
Yes, this year is less than ideal with Bonekeep being the season exclusive. Personally, I was not pleased by the idea. I had finally made it to 4 stars after GenCon in 2013 and by that time, most everyone of level in my area had had multiple options to play Day of the Demon, so I couldn't really run that and when I finally got something new...it was old. There was already a big discussion about this when it happened this year, and the PTB stated they would not be following the pattern next year with making Bonekeep 2 the exclusive...it should be something different. So, in another 5 months you should have another new scenario to run as an exclusive, if you can't find enough folks to play Bonekeep for you.
I don't believe getting the specials was never supposed to be easy. It was added as a requirement for a reason, I'm sure. It takes some perseverance to attain, and IMO, it should. But that's just my opinion.
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@Alex:
The scenario doesn't do anything special if multiple tables are being run simultaneously, so I don't really see the value of making it count as special in that case.
Context: here in the Netherlands we have a healthy and growing PFS community, but we're nowhere near the 15-table Con requirement that was floating around previously. Our most recent, highly successful Con was 8 tables over three days, which required some creative work to get everyone seated.
So we'd never be able to earn Special status that way, even though we're totally acting in good faith. If other people elsewhere can get that status by doing nothing different from us, just at a bigger scale, that seems a bit unfair. Not a huge injury, just a little unfair. And just strange, given that the scenario doesn't actually do anything with multiple tables like the Siege of the Diamond City.
I'm really glad about the previous decision to open up the scenario to any size event, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to play it. And it was nice to get to play it at the start of the season.
So...how do you guys get to 5 stars then? I'm guessing travel outside of your area to conventions? Conventions where Paths we choose will almost certainly be run, whereas the previous year Specials probably won't? I'd say that my plan would still help you guys.
But, if that idea doesn't fly, how about this one: The first time you run it, it counts as a special. That way it stops low star count GMs from running it endlessly for cheap specials, encourages GMs to run it quickly, and still gives a special to those GMs who volunteered to run it at Gen Con with the understanding that it was a special.
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Alex: That's a good idea.
Another idea would be for 'Paths' to count as a Special until the reporting deadline for the plot implications is reached. That would create an incentive for the reporting to happen so Mike & Mark will have a lot of results to find out if Schrödinger's faction leader is alive or dead.
We also need to remember that the people who would run it endlessly for 'cheap' are still folks who have GM'ed, at minimum, around 400 hours of gaming time for the campaign. Just before anyone starts saying stuff about getting cake and eating it too. ;)
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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So...how do you guys get to 5 stars then? I'm guessing travel outside of your area to conventions? Conventions where Paths we choose will almost certainly be run, whereas the previous year Specials probably won't? I'd say that my plan would still help you guys.
Short answer: Slowly but surely.
Long answer: it will be very difficult. We are most certainly eperiencing growth of the scene here in the netherlands. In my local city we went from 1 table every thursday evening to now 3 that we fill up.
Conventions just dont happen here. We do have fairs, but those are outdoor affairs, not at all suited for PFS play.
We will get Dutch Comic-Con in 2015, and there is F.A.C.T.S just over the border in Belgium, but as said, the scene is currently too small. We might do promotion there and get some regulars at tables, because if you are there, why not play?
At the moment we have 1 five star GM, Vincent Colon-Roine, who did most of his GMing in the USA before we got him on semi-permanent loan.
Next up would be our VC Auke at four stars.
Our most active GMs are one or two stars at the moment. So far sisnce I have started, we have run Year of the Shadow Lodge. We made five tables for that. We hope to have bigger special weekends once we grow.
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People asked the coordination team to loosen restrictions on running the scenario.
They didn't ask the coordination team to remove the Special status.
So, what you are saying (and this is only my interpretation), is that people wanted to not really be a special for purposes of who could run it, but wanted it to be a special to count towards the 5-star GM requirements?
I don't think I understand that at all.
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Mark: People wanted to be able to be able to run the scenario without having to muster 15 tables of PFS at one event.
People also wanted to be able to earn their 10 Special/Exclusive credits during 2014. In previous years we've had great Exclusive scenarios such as Day of the Demon, Cyphermage Dilemma, Midnight Mauler, etc. This year we've had Bonekeep. A scenario which you yourself admit to having no interest in playing.
A 'Special' or 'Exclusive' isn't about the number of butts on seats. It's about showing off the strength or future direction of the PFS campaign.
I'd argue that 'Paths' achieves that as it reshapes the faction system for PFS. It's special.
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This year we've had Bonekeep. A scenario which you yourself admit to having no interest in playing.
How about we try not to twist what I said, or claim I said something I didn't.
I've never played Bonekeep, Greg. :) (Not sure that I want to, either!)
That isn't admitting to having no interest in playing. It means I'm not sure, and my hesitance is based solely on not wanting to lose my favorite character.
I understand you don't like their decision, but please do not twist or manipulate what I said to try to make your point.
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I'd argue that 'Paths' achieves that as it reshapes the faction system for PFS. It's special.
There is nothing special about this scenario. It is nothing more than 4 hours of old-school faction missions, with nary a tie between them, and certainly with no ties or interaction or impact upon the other tables, or any sort of collective impact of all tables.
Unless everyone at Gen Con ran it wrong, this was just a plain, garden-variety 4-5 hour scenario. If it's special, it is so only in name only.
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I'm in the same boat as nosig... when star 5 gets here, it does. We just gave one of our V-L's his "tentative" 5-star certificate on Sept 21st, based on his having achieved his 9th and 10th special that day (5-99 and 6-00) - only because it was our annual Convocation event where we honor GMs who have achieved stars that year. We knew it wouldn't be official until Mike confirmed it, but didn't want to miss the window (he's actually at 170+ games and was waiting for those specials to qualify).
We have a con coming in November, and we'll run an older Special there - we have had enough new players join that we've already run Season Two's special and will likely run Season Three's this year.
Just a question for consideration: should running GM101/GM201 conut as "specials" for star purposes? Not just participating, but organizing and coordinating.
