What is the target audience for pfs?

[Hangman Henry IX]

Is the point of the society to introduce people to pathfinder in hopes they will break off into groups and do adventure paths? Is the target audience gamers in general? Or optimizers? Is the point of society play to make it so people can travel to different parts of the country and always have a game available? Are we meant to be welcoming to new players? Or adversarial? Is there meant to be a story and roleplaying? Or just a series of combats and then random useless treasure?

I ask this because I see a lot of gms on here who spend more time saying no to ideas than yes. I also ask because I continue seeing scenarios where the only roleplaying happens when I decide to make the monsters speak languages they don't know and talk to the murder hobos that are tramping about. "Assault on the wound" goes so far as to reduce the party to I just their charisma bonuses for the first two thirds of the adventure, and then follows it up with a nonsense dungeon with a bizarre bbeg with bizarre tactics.

Why are there so many adventures where the only talking is during the box text at the beginning? Is pfs meant to just be an organized open play tactical combat game? It often seems as if it is.

Why is it acceptable for there to be "killer gms" in society? Is the management really ok with people openly trying to be mean to strangers? Are they not worried this reflects bad on the game itself? Are they unaware there is social stigma of the game? Are they unaware that people of color and women have had bad experiences with being marginalized in games for sake of "authenticity"? Why is slavery acceptable in golarion? At gencon I was in a sea of priveleged white males, with few minorities and women around. In one of the missions people were sent to a slave auction, and I heard this being run at tables around me, people joking and laughing about slaves. Is it possible the management does not see this as perhaps insensitive? Do they perhaps not see slavery as actually evil?

We pretend dragons and liches are real, but we can't pretend women are equals? Or that slavery is evil?

[Coraith]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Is the point of the society to introduce people to pathfinder in hopes they will break off into groups and do adventure paths? Is the target audience gamers in general? Or optimizers? Is the point of society play to make it so people can travel to different parts of the country and always have a game available? Are we meant to be welcoming to new players? Or adversarial? Is there meant to be a story and roleplaying? Or just a series of combats and then random useless treasure?

In my experience: Yes, Yes, Sometimes, Yes, Always, Never, Yes, Depends on scenario.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

I ask this because I see a lot of gms on here who spend more time saying no to ideas than yes. I also ask because I continue seeing scenarios where the only roleplaying happens when I decide to make the monsters speak languages they don't know and talk to the murder hobos that are tramping about. "Assault on the wound" goes so far as to reduce the party to I just their charisma bonuses for the first two thirds of the adventure, and then follows it up with a nonsense dungeon with a bizarre bbeg with bizarre tactics.

I can think of a couple scenarios that have great reviews but I don't personally care for. Sadly not every scenario is gold.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Why are there so many adventures where the only talking is during the box text at the beginning? Is pfs meant to just be an organized open play tactical combat game? It often seems as if it is.

Anytime you can add roleplay to a scenario to make it interesting for you and the players by all means do so. I took out a combat from a scenario tonight and just had them roleplay their way through it.(I had a murder hobo that did minimum of like 20 damage a hit at first level, no need to throw more level 1 rogues at them) They met a delightful city guard named Jimmy(17 years old) who is looking to become a Paladin and has a 'wonderful' mother who has given her son a laundry list of things he is not allowed to do.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Why is it acceptable for there to be "killer gms" in society? Is the management really ok with people openly trying to be mean to strangers? Are they not worried this reflects bad on the game itself?

I don't think most people go out of their way to kill players, but sometimes that just happens and if you think you've been the victim of a killer GM just avoid their tables. That is what I do.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

...stuff...

As to the rest of it... well, I'm not going to get involved in that dialogue, it has been discussed repeatedly and does nothing but generate negativity.

[GeoffA]

Regarding the target audience for PFS, I think a good analogy is that PFS is like the McDonald's of gaming. Is it the best burger you ever had? Probably not. Can you go to lots of different locations, in lots of different cities and get a pretty consistent burger? Yes. Are there people who look down their nose at McDonald's because they only like burgers from The Holy Ground Irish Pub? Sure, but there's only one Holy Ground and if you don't live in New Orleans it's probably too far out of your way to get a burger. Do lots of people enjoy going to McDonald's every day? Yes, but it's not everyone's idea of a good time.

So, to specifically answer some of the OPs questions, does it favor gamers who move around all over the country? Sure. It's a good fit for people like that, or for people who can't commit the time to a game that runs every week. It's good for accommodating people who play all the time, and people who play only occasionally at the same table.

Does it favor optimizers? I think one of the qualities of a big organized play campaign is that you have to define, in more detail, exactly how the rules work. You want that consistency from one game to another. However, if the rules are more strongly defined, and the GM has less power to say "that's ridiculous, we're not using that in MY game" then it's easier for an optimizer to work. If you've min-maxed your character with a very obscure weakness, an optimizer might never (or only rarely) run into their problem situation.

Is it welcoming to new players? That probably varies from group to group, but it should be. You are less likely to end up at that table with five guys who have been gaming together since 1987, with their laundry list of in-jokes and house rules. It gives you a chance to try the game for four hours without making a commitment to show up at every session from now until the end of the campaign.

Is it adversarial? It shouldn't be, but I think because the rules are more strongly defined, sometimes GMs feel backed into a corner. It may feel like their putting their metaphorical foot on the neck of your character, but they're trying to stay true to what the module says to do. Different GMs seem to vary in how much they will stray from what was instructed - ymmv.

Is there any role-playing, or just combat? There are games that have more role-playing, and if that is your favorite thing about rpgs, then perhaps PFS is not the best fit for you (some people don't like McDonald's). The two things that seem to cut down on role-playing are that you sometimes get thrown together with a bunch of strangers (and you have no idea how much THEY want to role-play) and you're generally trying to get through a game in 4 hours. I think this varies widely, from table to table, depending on who else you are playing with. I have had some very fun RP in PFS sessions, and I have some where we spent most of the time fighting.

Wow, that turned out longer that I meant it to be. I hope I said something intelligent in there somewhere . . .

[Chris O'Reilly]

"Management" doesn't have monolithic control of PFS. The PFS experience is defined by the people who play it, and if you don't seem to care for them what can anyone really say?

[Mojorat]

PFS doesn't favour optimization as far as content goes. The vast majority of scenarios are designed that any player can survive and ha e fun. The fact that players are obsessed with optimization or feel its a must is a player paradigm.

[Care Baird]

Steven Huffstutler wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Why is it acceptable for there to be "killer gms" in society? Is the management really ok with people openly trying to be mean to strangers? Are they not worried this reflects bad on the game itself?

I don't think most people go out of their way to kill players, but sometimes that just happens and if you think you've been the victim of a killer GM just avoid their tables. That is what I do.

I DEMAND MORE TEARS!

[KuntaSS]

So I'm just going to state first, I do not play PFS and I haven't been to a Gencon. If you feel that invalidates my opinion on the slavery issue, then this is a whole lot of reading you can save yourself from just stopping here.

Slavery is a thing that happened historically to many different races and there were times when it wasn't seen as evil by the perpetrators and their peers. Different media has been produced with themes and settings revolving around slavery and set in those time periods, and people read, discuss, and enjoy these works while recognizing the views of many of the characters within may or likely did not reflect the views of the author. Few people are going to attack Alex Haley and accuse him of racism for writing a book where several characters drop the N word, have slaves, beat slaves, etc. throughout.

Just because the authors of books and adventure paths specific to Golarion have created a world where slavery isn't widely frowned upon doesn't mean they think slavery isn't evil, they aren't condoning slavery or trying to make some political message that slavery isn't bad.

To some people slavery is an uncomfortable topic, a lot of people handle uncomfortable situations and topics by joking about it. Especially around a gaming table, it isn't surprising to me that a group might be more predisposed to joking about the slave auction than having a sober and frank discussion about it, and then having a ten minute privilege checking session. That's not to say that you couldn't if you didn't want too, there's nothing in the rules that dictates how a table is supposed to address the issues surrounding that topic, no '-2 to ac if you don't think slavery is funny,' the situation is lain out and the players and DM handle it in their own way.

I'm going to assume you are American or British, op, please feel to correct me if I'm wrong, by the fact you referred to 'people of color' when bringing up the slavery issue. This may be a reflection of ignorance on my part, because I honestly have no idea how many countries have kept black slaves besides America, Britian, and Africa (where I'm assuming people of color isn't a very common term being thrown around.)

As far as I know in America, and in Britian, there are no legal rights or protections which extend to white men that do not extend to black people or women. Referring to white guys as a sea of privileged white males isn't a means to point out we have more rights or opportunity than anyone of a different sex or skin color is in my opinion just a mechanism by which new age feminists and social justice warriors try to paint the mark of an oppressor on white people or men (or in this case both) in order to forward their personal agendas. I think this is bull.

I think people should be equal, I think people deserve equal opportunity and I don't like that there are some aspects of society in which women and black people aren't yet up to par with white men, for example in average income. I think with time, due to equal opportunity today and hopefully extending into the future these sorts of gaps will begin to shrink and disappear. The whole check your privilege thing, to me is like trying to put a debt of guilt on me for something my ancestors were part of, it'd be like if I expected the children of murderers to go to prison because their fathers were murderers. I'm not going to tell you you can't say what you want to say, but if you don't appreciate when there are members of the pathfinder society community who are racially or sexually insensitive, it's hypocritical of you to be racially and sexually insensitive. Please if you feel I've made any assumptions that are untrue or drastically misrepresented a situation feel free to correct me, as I have never participated in a Gencon event or PFS play.

[trollbill]

I find it rather odd you don't know the answers to many of these questions considering you have GMed at least 30 games. However...

Is the point of the society to introduce people to pathfinder in hopes they will break off into groups and do adventure paths?
In the end, PFS is an advertising vehicle for Pathfinder and is meant to expand the hobby and the customer base, and inevitably to sell product. There are many different ways PFS can and does accomplish this.

Is the target audience gamers in general?
The target audience is all gamers and potential gamers.

Or optimizers?
Because of the wide variety of play styles out there it is nearly impossible for any one given mod to appeal to all of them. Some are more focused on a particular style of gaming than others.
I will say this, however. One of the strengths of organized play campaigns is to increase play opportunities. This appeals to the more dedicated gamers who want to play regularly rather than just once or twice a month at Joe's house assuming everyone can make it. Dedicated gamers have a high percentage of optimizers in their ranks. These same dedicated gamers also tend to be the people who do all the organizing and volunteer support work for PFS that allows the campaign to exist. So in these regards, optimizers are not a demographic that can be ignored by any organized play campaign, PFS or otherwise.

Is the point of society play to make it so people can travel to different parts of the country and always have a game available?
No. This is one of its benefits over a home game as it increases play opportunity. It is not, however, the point of it.

Are we meant to be welcoming to new players?
Absolutely.

Or adversarial?
Absolutely not.

Is there meant to be a story and roleplaying? Or just a series of combats and then random useless treasure?
While some PFS adventures have more role-play opportunities than others, almost all of them have opportunities. But just like any opportunities, you don't have to choose them. So how much role-playing occurs at the table is going to depend a lot upon the group and GM playing it.
However, I will say this. In order to help maximize the play opportunities of an organized play campaign, every OP campaign I have been involved in is designed to be run in a 4 hour slot as longer slots makes it both more difficult for people to attend local games and to get the most out of a convention. This time constraint means that if time is tight then RP sometimes has to be limited or shortcut in order to complete the adventure. This is especially true at conventions. I personally find that if you really want to put some RP into an OP adventure, then you want to run it as a home game with at least 6 hours available.

I ask this because I see a lot of GMs on here who spend more time saying no to ideas than yes.
If your ideas would chew up even more precious time in a limited timed event I am not overly surprised. Unfortunately, the timed slot requirements of an organized play campaign (and again, this applies to all organized play campaigns not just PFS) puts limits on what can and cannot be reasonably done at the table. This is one of the disadvantages of an organized play campaign compared to a home game.

I also ask because I continue seeing scenarios where the only roleplaying happens when I decide to make the monsters speak languages they don't know and talk to the murder hobos that are tramping about.
Role-playing, in my experience, is what you make of it. I can recall no PFS adventures that had no RP opportunities. I can, however, recall many PFS adventures I have played in where the party, the GM or both chose not to take advantage of those opportunities. Often it’s due to time constraints, but sometimes RP just isn’t what people want, and that’s okay, not everyone should have to play the game the same way.

"Assault on the wound" goes so far as to reduce the party to I just their charisma bonuses for the first two thirds of the adventure, and then follows it up with a nonsense dungeon with a bizarre bbeg with bizarre tactics.
Assault on the wound was an experimental adventure adding some elements of mass combat into a PFS adventure. This has strong roots in both D&D’s origins from the table-top miniatures game Chainmail and in epic fantasy adventures like Lord of the Rings that feature major, set piece battles. In this regard, I applaud PFS for trying to add this new element. Comparing all of PFS to this one adventure, however, is an unfair comparison.

Why are there so many adventures where the only talking is during the box text at the beginning?
It almost seems like you are playing a completely different game than I am playing. Almost every single adventure I have run has had RP opportunities in it. Many time the GMs or players don’t take advantage of those opportunities, but that is their choice.

Is pfs meant to just be an organized open play tactical combat game? It often seems as if it is.
See above.

Why is it acceptable for there to be "killer gms" in society? Is the management really ok with people openly trying to be mean to strangers? Are they not worried this reflects bad on the game itself? Are they unaware there is social stigma of the game?
None of this is acceptable in PFS but you have to bear in mind that PFS is a volunteer organization and that means Paizo has only limited control over the entire GM and player base. As such, the organization has to be self-policed. If a GM or player is being problematic for any reason, local organizers need to have this brought to their attention to deal with and if that doesn’t work, then the PFS staff needs to be brought in. But nothing is going to happen if no one brings the problem to anyone’s attention. So if you see this happening, report it.

Are they unaware that people of color and women have had bad experiences with being marginalized in games for sake of "authenticity"? Why is slavery acceptable in golarion? At gencon I was in a sea of priveleged white males, with few minorities and women around. In one of the missions people were sent to a slave auction, and I heard this being run at tables around me, people joking and laughing about slaves. Is it possible the management does not see this as perhaps insensitive? Do they perhaps not see slavery as actually evil?

We pretend dragons and liches are real, but we can't pretend women are equals? Or that slavery is evil?
This particular subject has been discussed on these boards ad nauseam so I am not going to feed into this particular troll.

[Hmm]

I am new to PFS, and am looking forward to having a few drop-in opportunities without a large time commitment, and maybe to meet a few more players in the process.

Regarding the whole slavery thing:
Liberty's Edge Faction would be no fun to play in a world without slavery. I for one don't think that eliminating slavery from the setting is needed -- this background adds richness and moral ambiguity and yes, evil, to make the world a more complicated one in which to be a hero. I love the idea of being part of the rebels / Underground Railroad / operating in slaver territory.

Regarding gaming being welcoming to people of color / women:
I think that HH IX raised some good questions at the end of his/her post. It's always uncomfortable being part of a minority. And it is hard for those in the majority to see the mantle of privilege that they carry. To be honest, this is something that worried me enough that I am going to do PFS with my boyfriend as a social buffer.

One thing that I like so far about Pathfinder is that the world looks fairly diverse, and that the PFS backstory and rules encourages PCs to be interested in exploration of that diversity without bullying.

Hmm

[Nefreet]

The Slavery/Social Equality aspect of this discussion should be taken to the Pathfinder Campaign Setting forum, and not the PFS forum.

That said, I pretty much agree with everything trollbill mentioned above.

[Jiggy]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Is the point of the society to introduce people to pathfinder in hopes they will break off into groups and do adventure paths?

Being a "gateway" is one role of the campaign, but not the only role of the campaign. It's still a campaign of its own, whether people break off into other groups or not. But it is (as I understand it) supposed to introduce people to the game (among other things).

Quote:

Is the target audience gamers in general? Or optimizers?

Gamers in general, but it's also got some (limited) "hard-mode" options for the optimizers.

Quote:

Is the point of society play to make it so people can travel to different parts of the country and always have a game available?

Portability is one of the points, yes.

Quote:

Are we meant to be welcoming to new players? Or adversarial?

Welcoming.

Quote:

Is there meant to be a story and roleplaying? Or just a series of combats and then random useless treasure?

If you think that combat and roleplaying are two entirely different and separate things and there's only room for one or the other, then you're not very good at roleplaying. Some of my favorite roleplay moments have been in the context of combat.

Quote:

I ask this because I see a lot of gms on here who spend more time saying no to ideas than yes.

This could be a good or bad thing, depending on what's being said "no" to. There's definitely some "no" that has to happen to keep the campaign in such a state as to allow someone to (for instance) come home from active duty and expect the character they built in Iraq or wherever to function the same in Detroit. On the other hand, there's also a lot of "no" that happens when a GM wants the players to experience the scenario in a certain way. Look for keywords like "trivialize" or "challenge".

Quote:

I also ask because I continue seeing scenarios where the only roleplaying happens when I decide to make the monsters speak languages they don't know and talk to the murder hobos that are tramping about.

If you think that fighting a monster instead of parlaying with an NPC means that roleplaying hasn't happened, then you have a small idea of what roleplaying means. And I say this as someone who has on MANY occasions prevented combat via diplomacy (not necessarily the skill, sometimes just talking instead of ambushing).

I just retired my favorite character, finishing the two-year story of how Thomas the Tiefling Hero saves the world. It involved many instances of talking and winning people over—including his own teammates—but also involved many instances of violence. Sometimes he'd stand empty-handed before a troop of archers with bows drawn, calmly assuring them of his peaceful intent; other times, he'd march forward and decapitate the demon lord without a word.

And it was ALL part of playing that role.

Quote:

"Assault on the wound" goes so far as to reduce the party to I just their charisma bonuses for the first two thirds of the adventure, and then follows it up with a nonsense dungeon with a bizarre bbeg with bizarre tactics.

I agree that scenario has some issues, but the fact that it involved the violent culmination of several scenarios of exploration and diplomacy as part of a season-long narrative doesn't exactly indicate a lack of roleplay.

Quote:

Why are there so many adventures where the only talking is during the box text at the beginning?

Because you don't engage in/encourage in-combat roleplaying, perhaps?

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Is pfs meant to just be an organized open play tactical combat game? It often seems as if it is.

Only if you treat it that way.

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Why is it acceptable for there to be "killer gms" in society? Is the management really ok with people openly trying to be mean to strangers? Are they not worried this reflects bad on the game itself? Are they unaware there is social stigma of the game?

They're aware, but (so far) GMs are not fitted with shock collars for campaign leadership to be able to zap people around the world. Unfortunately, many people's response to toxic GMing is to simply leave ("vote with your feet", "they'll soon find themselves without players", etc), which unfortunately doesn't work in PFS because there are so many fresh players available. They'll just get batches of fresh players and think they're awesome GMs because look how my table is always full! We should work to remove the stigma of talking to GMs directly or even *gasp!* reporting GMs' behavior to the higher-ups. A problem can't be fixed if you just walk away from it; it's just left there for someone else to suffer from.

Quote:

Are they unaware that people of color and women have had bad experiences with being marginalized in games for sake of "authenticity"? Why is slavery acceptable in golarion? At gencon I was in a sea of priveleged white males, with few minorities and women around. In one of the missions people were sent to a slave auction, and I heard this being run at tables around me, people joking and laughing about slaves. Is it possible the management does not see this as perhaps insensitive? Do they perhaps not see slavery as actually evil?

We pretend dragons and liches are real, but we...

And this is all more of a Campaign Setting topic than a PFS topic.

[Corvus Cailean]

Quote:

Why is slavery acceptable in golarion?

So we have a moral excuse for bloody violence upon other sentient beings: namely decapitating the guy holding the whip.

We LIKE violence. The problem is that its usually wrong and using it would make you the bad guy. In order to eliminate this dichotomy, the hero gets a good reason or excuse to engage in dicing people to pieces: to stop an evil wizard, revenge, or a crusade against an injustice so great that smashing peoples heads in becomes a viable moral alternative.

[David Bowles]

Slavery is acceptable likely because slavery was a acceptable in our own Renaissance period and before. Or, pre-electrical age, if you are an American.

[Andrew Harasty]

I find PFS and Organized Play in general to be a combination of Gate way for new players to RPGs and for experienced players to meet new players in a non committed environment. Also it does provide a local community players that you can game with on a somewhat consistent basis

"Roleplaying in PFS" Having done my share of Organized play GMing the role playing depends on the level of familiarity of the players. At large Cons, like GenCon, a table full of strangers rarely syncs up to have a good roleplaying sessions. On the flip side, local game days and local cons, which have many of the same faces repeating, will tend to have more RP interactions.

Then if everyone knows each other too well, and it is the last session of the night, and you all decide to play completely new level 1 characters in an intro mod, the role playing may never stop.

(The gnome was Sulu since he drove the cart)

[Hangman Henry IX]

thanks for your answers guys, i think some of you think i am just being trolly, but after years of playing pfs and some travel around, i am just unsure what the goal of the campaign is.

i have often heard it stated that this is mike brock's campaign, and that the gms are meant to just me an intermediary between the management and the player base at large. as a player in that campaign, i feel that i have the right to request explanations for certain design decisions. explanations may be refused, and i know i can leave at any time, but i think constructive criticism is better for all than simply packing up and leaving.

i will admit i prolly havent read as much of the forums as some of you, so some of these topics may have been poked to death, i wouldn't know.

it seems most can agree the system is meant to be open to RP and tacticians, and that scenarios are made to accommodate varying play-styles. i agree that scenarios vary wildly, but i was unaware this is intentional. if so, perhaps we could figure out a rating system for such adventures? right now all we have is 1-5 stars, but that doesn't take into account people like things for different reasons. the comparison to mcdonalds was made earlier. if pfs is mcdonalds, then every meal is currently a surprise meal, with no real clues as to its contents. sure, we can read the blurb, or ask around, but i think a lot of people try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. killer mods (dalsine affair) not having a rating saying "killer" is similar to mcdonalds selling peanuts in a surprise meal and not warning of potential food allergens.

in regards to killer gms, a lot of posts say that it shouldn't be tolerated, but that the management doesn't have a lot of control over it. why don't they? can't you look at a player's gm record and see how many scenarios they've run that have resulted in tpks? and if so, why not? it should be a simple table search in their database. i agree that it should be on the players to complain to higher ups, but i have also heard that there are some VLs and VCs that pride themselves on being tough on the players. this could just be hearsay, but i don't think it bodes well for the health of the community if the local organizers have reputations for ruining peoples fun.

how could we better get new players used to complaining that a gm has been unfair? currently they seem more likely to just turn away from the system, and that is terrible for rpgs in general.

and in regards to the final issues, that people are saying is a campaign issue. as this is an organized play game, and seeing as how certain aspects of the setting have been ruled as unacceptable, why are there still scenarios where slavery is LN. i don't care about the historical accuracy in our game of dragons and wizards. that is a nonsense argument. the designers made a conscious decision to include a system that for many people brings up issues of oppression. seeing people playing chelaxians and referring to halflings as chattel at the table and having that be acceptable does not create a welcoming environment for people that see parallels between that situation and real world ones. the only argument i see for it being acceptable are historical ones, which do nothing to make the game more welcoming to newcomers of different races. in regards to my statement about the gencon playroom being a see of white faces, this was more to point out that i feel pfs is not doing a good job at branching out and diversifying its player base. if society play is meant to be welcoming to gamers of all types, why bother including an element that is so often seen as being racist?

[Hangman Henry IX]

Hmm wrote:

I am new to PFS, and am looking forward to having a few drop-in opportunities without a large time commitment, and maybe to meet a few more players in the process.

Regarding the whole slavery thing:
Liberty's Edge Faction would be no fun to play in a world without slavery. I for one don't think that eliminating slavery from the setting is needed -- this background adds richness and moral ambiguity and yes, evil, to make the world a more complicated one in which to be a hero. I love the idea of being part of the rebels / Underground Railroad / operating in slaver territory.

Regarding gaming being welcoming to people of color / women:
I think that HH IX raised some good questions at the end of his/her post. It's always uncomfortable being part of a minority. And it is hard for those in the majority to see the mantle of privilege that they carry. To be honest, this is something that worried me enough that I am going to do PFS with my boyfriend as a social buffer.

One thing that I like so far about Pathfinder is that the world looks fairly diverse, and that the PFS backstory and rules encourages PCs to be interested in exploration of that diversity without bullying.

Hmm

i am not exactly arguing for the removal of slavery from the setting, i am arguing that the societies where it is acceptable and the people that take part in it should be by default LE instead of LN. the fact that absalom has a slave market in it, and is the headquarters of the pathfinder society is just mind boggling to me. the fact that there was a mission briefing where the stated purpose was to take part in a slave auction and that violence/trickery were only last resort is mind boggling to me. i assume that the person writing this doesn't see this as a problem, and that campaign leadership doesn't see this as a problem. it seems there have been a great many arguments about this on the boards. have there been more arguments about this or synthesist summoners or tetori monks? who knows. i know that certain character choices have been ruled out because they made the game less fun for people, so i dunno why the leadership hasn't done anything about this.

[Kadasbrass Loreweaver]

I guess the point of PFS is to give people the chance to enjoy a game they like while being part of a living breathing world that will change over time and now will change depending on their actions. For the casual gamer, it gives them a chance to sit down and play how ever often they want without feeling like they are missing something if they miss a week, month, or year. The whole one day one episode approach of PFS.

I guess for some it also has structure. There is no question on what is allowed and what is not allowed. You either have the book and the thing is allowed. No "Well will this GM allowed X Y or Z or not" Universal rules.

Lastly, for others it is nice to be able to play the same character with different groups without having the whole "Well GM A allows X but not Y and GM B allows Y but not X" Not to mention the GM looking at your char and going "sorry this person has too much gold/magic items" from previous games.

[Joe M.]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i think some of you think i am just being trolly

Yes, I'd say so.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

but after years of playing pfs and some travel around, i am just unsure what the goal of the campaign is.

So if it wasn't your intention to pick a fight, it's probably worth your time to stop and think for a bit about how your original post might give folks a contrary impression, in hope of better communicating your intentions in the future.

:-)

[JurgenV]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

in regards to my statement about the gencon playroom being a see of white faces, this was more to point out that i feel pfs is not doing a good job at branching out and diversifying its player base. if society play is meant to be welcoming to gamers of all types, why bother including an element that is so often seen as being racist?

Yet you went with the rather racist sounding accusation of them being "privileged" instead of questioning WHY there are far more white folks and it is mostly cultural. RPGs tend to spread friend to friend, most people tend to have friends similar to themselves. There is little advertising in mass media. There is a social stigma to being a fantasy fan and historically the fantasy genre was aimed at and mostly consumed by white males. It takes time for those dynamics to shift, i mean this hobby has only really existed for how long now? There is no racism in PFS if few minority folks choose to play it. No sexism if few women choose to play it. If you have any evidence that the game or designers are excluding those folks i would love to hear it. Yes pulp fantasy often DID have elements of racism/sexism, but those should be elements wrong with society for the heroes to stand up to. Without evil we can have no heroes.

[twilsemail]

Joe M. wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i think some of you think i am just being trolly

Yes, I'd say so.

I don't know if I read this in a different tone than other folks because I'm having a pretty great Monday or what, but I'm pretty impressed by the outright hostile reaction some folks seem to have had. Up to one person being under the impression that Hangman Henry should already "know" what's up as he/she is a 2 star GM.

[Hangman Henry IX]

JurgenV wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

in regards to my statement about the gencon playroom being a see of white faces, this was more to point out that i feel pfs is not doing a good job at branching out and diversifying its player base. if society play is meant to be welcoming to gamers of all types, why bother including an element that is so often seen as being racist?

Yet you went with the rather racist sounding accusation of them being "privileged" instead of questioning WHY there are far more white folks and it is mostly cultural. RPGs tend to spread friend to friend, most people tend to have friends similar to themselves. There is little advertising in mass media. There is a social stigma to being a fantasy fan and historically the fantasy genre was aimed at and mostly consumed by white males. It takes time for those dynamics to shift, i mean this hobby has only really existed for how long now? There is no racism in PFS if few minority folks choose to play it. No sexism if few women choose to play it. If you have any evidence that the game or designers are excluding those folks i would love to hear it. Yes pulp fantasy often DID have elements of racism/sexism, but those should be elements wrong with society for the heroes to stand up to. Without evil we can have no heroes.

i would rather remove the elements that are unnecessary and could be construed as racist than include them for the sake of "historical accuracy". making the game world more accepting can not be a bad thing, if the point of pfs is to be open to gamers of all types.

at gencon all gms were given purple shirts to wear, and were told their actions would reflect on paizo itself as a whole. they were told not to badmouth pfs, or pathfinder, or other gaming products, as they were the face of the company at the con and the company did not want personal opinions to reflect poorly on the company itself. the thursday evening slot included a mission for the LG "holy warrior" arm of pfs that had players go and take part in a slave auction. they were told the optimal outcome would be that the slaves would be bought and no trouble would be had. for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

perhaps it just slipped by management the irony of telling the gms that they shouldn't badmouth the company and then asking them to roleplay out a slave auction as a LN enterprise for a bunch of strangers. unless of course the official stance of paizo is that slavery is something we just hafta accept and deal with sometimes and that its all right because it is just make believe.

i am posting this in the pfs and not the campaign section, because the pfs chooses to use the campaign as they see fit. not all aspects of the campaign world are part of pfs, nor should they be.

[Hangman Henry IX]

twilsemail wrote:

Joe M. wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i think some of you think i am just being trolly

Yes, I'd say so.

I don't know if I read this in a different tone than other folks because I'm having a pretty great Monday or what, but I'm pretty impressed by the outright hostile reaction some folks seem to have had. Up to one person being under the impression that Hangman Henry should already "know" what's up as he/she is a 2 star GM.

i really didnt expect people to react so negatively. i don't really read the forums much, most of my experience is from a local playgroup, and from some travel around the country. in my experience there hasn't been much if any cohesion in regards to how pfs is run, in either the people running it or the people playing it. mebbe all these questions have been answered, and if so im sorry for stirring the pot.

[Jiggy]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

a mission for the LG "holy warrior" arm of pfs that had players go and take part in a slave auction. they were told the optimal outcome would be that the slaves would be bought and no trouble would be had. for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

Did you actually play that mission? I did, and it was NOT the "go buy some slaves" idea that you paint it as. It was "Go rescue these victims who are about to be sold into slavery, and do so without causing a riot or a bloodbath or anything because that's not good either". The whole idea was that the slaves were victims and the PCs were supposed to rescue them without murderhobo-ing the whole place.

Maybe do some fact-checking next time, eh?

[Hangman Henry IX]

Jiggy wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

a mission for the LG "holy warrior" arm of pfs that had players go and take part in a slave auction. they were told the optimal outcome would be that the slaves would be bought and no trouble would be had. for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

Did you actually play that mission? I did, and it was NOT the "go buy some slaves" idea that you paint it as. It was "Go rescue these victims who are about to be sold into slavery, and do so without causing a riot or a bloodbath or anything because that's not good either". The whole idea was that the slaves were victims and the PCs were supposed to rescue them without murderhobo-ing the whole place.

Maybe do some fact-checking next time, eh?

the problem is that the first solution is to take part in the auction. they could have given you an item to create an illusion that you are meant to switch out with the slaves while in transit, or sleep gas, or any sort of magical deus ex. the first line of the mission after questions is in fact: "after the PCs agree to attend the auction and bid for the enslaved..." with no hint for the gm on what to do if the players want to avoid going to a slave auction.

in regards to my fact checking, i assume you simply misunderstood me and you had no way of knowing i had in fact prepped the mod to run at gencon. this sort of ad hominem attack in response to genuine concerns does not reflect well on the community either.

[trollbill]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

killer mods (dalsine affair) not having a rating saying "killer" is similar to mcdonalds selling peanuts in a surprise meal and not warning of potential food allergens.

Killing someone in a fantasy game is not "similar" to killing them in real life. That is a grossly exaggerated comparison.

Quote:

in regards to killer gms, a lot of posts say that it shouldn't be tolerated, but that the management doesn't have a lot of control over it. why don't they? can't you look at a player's gm record and see how many scenarios they've run that have resulted in tpks? and if so, why not? it should be a simple table search in their database. i agree that it should be on the players to complain to higher ups, but but i have also heard that there are some VLs and VCs that pride themselves on being tough on the players. this could just be hearsay, but i don't think it bodes well for the health of the community if the local organizers have reputations for ruining peoples fun.

Firstly, policing a population, especially one as large as the PFS player base would require a large amount of resources that would be better put other places. There is a reason PFS is a largely volunteer organization.

Secondly, there is no absolute definition of killer GM, nor should there be. Just as some people prefer heavy RP over heavy optimization, some people prefer hard GMs over soft ones. As an example of this, we have a GM in our area who splits his PFS time between here and where he used to live. He came from an area with a lot of experienced players who preferred very challenging games so when he moved here and start GMing in our area he GMed the same way. The problem was we had a lot of newbs and casual players that did not like to play in this style and he didn’t adapt to that. Eventually, at the request of the venue owner, we had to ban him from GMing locally due to the number of complaints. However, every time he goes back home, he GMs there and everyone there apparently is fine with that. This is why voicing complaints rather than relying on some form of omniscient oversight is preferred. What’s good from some groups is not always good for others and PFS needs to have the flexibility to deal with that.

Quote:

how could we better get new players used to complaining that a gm has been unfair? currently they seem more likely to just turn away from the system, and that is terrible for rpgs in general.

This is a question that organized play organizers have been wrestling with since there was anything to organize. Part of this is simply human nature, which is very difficult to overcome.

Quote:

in regards to my statement about the gencon playroom being a see of white faces, this was more to point out that i feel pfs is not doing a good job at branching out and diversifying its player base.

Could I ask how many non-white and non-male faces you saw in other parts of GenCon? If the answer is, “The same as I saw in the Sagamore Ballroom,” then the issue is a lot bigger than just PFS and is going to require a lot more than just PFS to fix it.

[ZomB]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i am not exactly arguing for the removal of slavery from the setting,

Then what are you trying to say in your next post?

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i would rather remove the elements that are unnecessary and could be construed as racist than include them for the sake of "historical accuracy".

[Hangman Henry IX]

trollbill wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

killer mods (dalsine affair) not having a rating saying "killer" is similar to mcdonalds selling peanuts in a surprise meal and not warning of potential food allergens.

Killing someone in a fantasy game is not "similar" to killing them in real life. That is a grossly exaggerated comparison.

oh i agree it is. but to some people who have spent a lot of time on a character RPing it that is not very optimized, and then dies in a dungeon that "everyone" knows is a killer, it can still be quite devastating. i'm not saying we shouldn't have challenging mods, but i do think that the people that enjoy easier ones should be able to tell what they are getting into.

(i tried quoting more of yer post but it got cut off, sorry)

in regards to your last statement, about the issue being bigger than pfs. i agree it is, but i also think that making pfs more open would be a big step for the nerd community at large. it is the most popular rpg now isn't it? as the leaders in the field do they not have some social responsibility?

[redward]

twilsemail wrote:

Joe M. wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i think some of you think i am just being trolly

Yes, I'd say so.

I don't know if I read this in a different tone than other folks because I'm having a pretty great Monday or what, but I'm pretty impressed by the outright hostile reaction some folks seem to have had. Up to one person being under the impression that Hangman Henry should already "know" what's up as he/she is a 2 star GM.

I'm with you.

There is white male privilege inherent to RPGs in general--including Pathfinder--like it or not. For examples, see the "New Iconics Desexed" thread in the Campaign Setting forum (not linking because I don't want to actually contribute to that hot mess), or any of the other threads on ethnic and gender issues.

I think Paizo has taken great strides to try to reverse this (releasing Seelah as their first Iconic is one example, Shardra is another) but that doesn't mean there's not much more ground to cover. I also think they've generally handled the gender issues much better than the race issues, which is understandable if you look at the makeup of the company. It's not a matter of ill intent, just lacking the perspective to see it from the other side. I know I certainly suffer from this as a white male.

That said, I don't think slavery is a subject that should be outright avoided. Murder's nasty too, but there's plenty of it in Pathfinder. If players handle the topic poorly, that's on them, not the author of the scenario (as long as the author is handling it respectfuly*). And that can be a growth opportunity:
In character: "I spent most of my life as a slave before I was finally able to murder my captors and escape a life of torture and servitude. Perhaps I shall reconsider if you are worthy of Cayden's blessings and healing."
Out of character: "Seriously, slavery is a sensitive issue for me. Can we not joke about it, please?"

*And I didn't see any problems here with regards to the specific scenario being discussed:

Spoiler:

Ollysta Zadrian is Lawful Good, so she's probably not going to suggest unlawfully attacking a lawful slaver except as a last resort. I enjoyed this, because it showed the complications of being a Paladin in an imperfect society. It's not as simple as SMASH EVIL.

[Hangman Henry IX]

ZomB wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i am not exactly arguing for the removal of slavery from the setting,

Then what are you trying to say in your next post?

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i would rather remove the elements that are unnecessary and could be construed as racist than include them for the sake of "historical accuracy".

not having missions where slavery is seen as LN, not having missions where the pcs are expected to deal with slavers any better than whatever random demon pops up. perhaps clarifying their stance on whether they consider slavery to be LN or LE in the game world. slavers can still be in the world, but the society doesn't necessarily have to make deals with them.

[Jiggy]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

a mission for the LG "holy warrior" arm of pfs that had players go and take part in a slave auction. they were told the optimal outcome would be that the slaves would be bought and no trouble would be had. for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

Did you actually play that mission? I did, and it was NOT the "go buy some slaves" idea that you paint it as. It was "Go rescue these victims who are about to be sold into slavery, and do so without causing a riot or a bloodbath or anything because that's not good either". The whole idea was that the slaves were victims and the PCs were supposed to rescue them without murderhobo-ing the whole place.

Maybe do some fact-checking next time, eh?

the problem is that the first solution is to take part in the auction. they could have given you an item to create an illusion that you are meant to switch out with the slaves while in transit, or sleep gas, or any sort of magical deus ex. the first line of the mission after questions is in fact: "after the PCs agree to attend the auction and bid for the enslaved..." with no hint for the gm on what to do if the players want to avoid going to a slave auction.

If you honestly can't see the difference between "attend=use the most discreet method possible to liberate the oppressed" and "attend=take part in/give compliant approval to", then I don't know what to tell you. Physical presence is not automatically bad; that's like saying the Mendevian crusaders are evil because they agreed to commit acts of violence among demons in the Worldwound. Saying that helping innocent victims is icky just because it uses the phrase "attend the auction" is beyond ridiculous.

[trollbill]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

oh i agree it is. but to some people who have spent a lot of time on a character RPing it that is not very optimized, and then dies in a dungeon that "everyone" knows is a killer, it can still be quite devastating. i'm not saying we shouldn't have challenging mods, but i do think that the people that enjoy easier ones should be able to tell what they are getting into.

While I agree this would be nice, how would you go about doing this? Some adventures, like Bonekeep are meant to be tough, and are advertised as such. But most difficult adventures were not necessarily intended to be that difficult. As an example, the latest Free RPG day adventure got a lot of flack from being too difficult, but one of the biggest reasons it was so difficult was that the NPCS chosen to be played in this mod were ill suited for it. The author explained the practical reasons these NPCs had been included and their last minute inclusion meant he hadn't built the adventure with those NPCs in mind. All sorts of things can contribute to a mod being far more (or less) difficult than it was intended to be. The only ways to get an accurate measure of difficulty in such cases is via customer feedback, which comes after the mod has been published and released. So if you want to get a good idea of difficulty, you need to read the reviews.

I do agree, however, that when they specifically design an adventure to be difficult they should have a warning label on it. They did this with Bonekeep, but they didn't do this with The Waking Rune and I did complain about that last year.

[JurgenV]

I like the idea of clearly marking "mostly RP" and "meatgrinder" mods

[Andreas Forster]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

i am not exactly arguing for the removal of slavery from the setting, i am arguing that the societies where it is acceptable and the people that take part in it should be by default LE instead of LN

Slavery doesn't neccessarily have to be evil per se, it's a matter of how the owner treats the slave. Yes, many cases of slavery in real history were indeed evil (abducting and beating the slaves, for example). But in other cases, slaves were just workers/housemaids, they just weren't given any money, but they were given clothes, a bed, and food.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

I suppose this general topic is addressed in the scenario description. So people who are sensitive to the topic shouldn't sign up for that game in the first place. If no description was given, on the other hand, the GM could inform the players before the game and ask if anyone could get uncomfortable with the topic.

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

they could have given you an item to create an illusion that you are meant to switch out with the slaves while in transit, or sleep gas, or any sort of magical deus ex.

Now THAT would be something a lawful character should have problems with. There's a legal slave auction and they are told to essentially steal the slaves?

If the slaves were illegally captured, then a lawful character would collect evidence and report to the authorities, but if there is no evidence of illegal capture, there's nothing the lawful character can do other than buy the slaves and then set them free (which is an owner's right).

[Kyle Baird]

JurgenV wrote:

I like the idea of clearly marking "mostly RP" and "meatgrinder" mods

This often depends more on your GM than the scenario itself.

[BigNorseWolf]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

not having missions where slavery is seen as LN

Golarion IS a world where slavery is seen as LN, because there are different forms of slavery from the horrifically evil chattle slavery to greek style slavery light which amounts to being a person with no ability to quit but really expensive job security.

The society deals with these people (hell, the society IS some of those people) because as a band of adventurer archeologists they don't care. Its not their job to change the world its their job to study it, catalog it, and disseminate that knowledge to a select few.

They are not the good guys. They are not the harpers. They are not the knights of the round table. On a good day they're indiana jones. On a bad day....

They still manage to be the good guys because of how grimy. scuzy, and gritty the rest of golarion is. Its part of the flavor of the world: its supposed to stick in your teeth on the way down. Its dirt flavored to remind you WHY your character is a hero in the first place: to fight to make the world suck just a little bit less.

Quote:

not having missions where the pcs are expected to deal with slavers any better than whatever random demon pops up.

Part of what adds depth to a character is drama. Drama stems from internal conflict. As a paladin Ollystria is sworn to both respect authority and be a champion of good. Situations where those are completely at odds are a chance to explore that dichotomy. That character has decided that the best she can do given the two extremes is to have the PCs buy the slaves in question: No laws are broken, the civil order remains intact, and the people are free.

If you want to stab the slavers in the face with a dull spoon, the edge of liberty is right around the corner and now that cheliax isn't a faction will probably be kicking the slaver body count into high gear.

Quote:

perhaps clarifying their stance on whether they consider slavery to be LN or LE in the game world. slavers can still be in the world, but the society doesn't necessarily have to make deals with them.

By all means, If you were at my table and wanted to take the andoran solution that would definitely be an option.

[Kyle Baird]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

What is the target audience for pfs?

Nerds!

[BigNorseWolf]

JurgenV wrote:

I like the idea of clearly marking "mostly RP" and "meatgrinder" mods

They're already there. The blackrose wedding, hellknights feast, merchants wake are all high RP scenarios. The bonkeeps.. well will keep your bones in nice bite sized chunks.

[JurgenV]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

JurgenV wrote:

I like the idea of clearly marking "mostly RP" and "meatgrinder" mods

They're already there. The blackrose wedding, hellknights feast, merchants wake are all high RP scenarios. The bonkeeps.. well will keep your bones in nice bite sized chunks.

Not all games have done this . I'm saying i like that.

[David Bowles]

Kyle Baird wrote:

JurgenV wrote:

I like the idea of clearly marking "mostly RP" and "meatgrinder" mods

This often depends more on your GM than the scenario itself.

Not really. The GM can INFLUENCE it, but the author ultimately sets the tone.

[Black Powder Chocobo]

Kyle Baird wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

What is the target audience for pfs?

Nerds!

I just read that in Ogre's voice.

To be honest, the above posters have commented on the key notes. I have to ask, Hangman, as a 2-Star GM, what have you run mostly? Season 4-5 stuff, or have you gotten into some of the earlier scenario games, as well?

I ask because the deadly scenario spike occurred during Season 4 as they adjusted for 4 player tables and a growing demand for more challenging games. While many agree Season 5 curbed back some difficulty, they're still balanced around the 6 PC paradigm instead of the 4 player tables of prior seasons. Likewise, with 6 player tables, RP time is split up into more slices and thus leading to less time per player.

[Ring_of_Gyges]

Slavery isn't lawful neutral in Golarian, slavery is consistently described as evil.

The scenario

Spoiler:

(and I'm assuming we're talking about The Freedom Auction here) lists alignments for the auctioneer (NE), the buyer the PC's are bidding against (NE), and his henchmen (LE).

Slave Pits of Absalom (an earlier scenario involving rescuing slaves) also lists both slavers as evil (one NE, one LE).

Is there a stat block somewhere that writes up a slaver as neutral on the good/evil axis? If so, I'd be honestly interested to see it. If not, why go on saying Paizo presents slavery as LN when they stat up slavers as varieties of evil?

Too much optimized murder hoboing for your taste is a valid complaint, but location dependent. In my local scene I have a level 5 character who's never killed anyone. Last session the BBEG fight never happened because we made a deal with him instead. The "Paizo says slavery is LN" claim is one I just don't get.

[Andrew Christian]

JurgenV wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

in regards to my statement about the gencon playroom being a see of white faces, this was more to point out that i feel pfs is not doing a good job at branching out and diversifying its player base. if society play is meant to be welcoming to gamers of all types, why bother including an element that is so often seen as being racist?

Yet you went with the rather racist sounding accusation of them being "privileged" instead of questioning WHY there are far more white folks and it is mostly cultural. RPGs tend to spread friend to friend, most people tend to have friends similar to themselves. There is little advertising in mass media. There is a social stigma to being a fantasy fan and historically the fantasy genre was aimed at and mostly consumed by white males. It takes time for those dynamics to shift, i mean this hobby has only really existed for how long now? There is no racism in PFS if few minority folks choose to play it. No sexism if few women choose to play it. If you have any evidence that the game or designers are excluding those folks i would love to hear it. Yes pulp fantasy often DID have elements of racism/sexism, but those should be elements wrong with society for the heroes to stand up to. Without evil we can have no heroes.

We have a large following of PFS in culturally diverse areas of the world, including Turkey, the Middle East, Israel, South America, South Africa, Mexico, etc.

The fact that Gen Con happens to be in Indianapolis, where a large portion of the roleplaying base is founded upon the midwest, where the majority of the population are white, could be why this particular venue seemed to be mostly white.

However, let me tell you what I saw:

I saw thousands of people of all colors, creeds, sex, ethnicity, sexuality, et. al. join together to play a game we all love. Were there some in the minority? Yes. But I personally did not notice, hear of, or see any racism or bigotry during the show.

[Andrew Christian]

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Hangman Henry IX wrote:

a mission for the LG "holy warrior" arm of pfs that had players go and take part in a slave auction. they were told the optimal outcome would be that the slaves would be bought and no trouble would be had. for many people, this could have been their first taste of pfs. a slave auction.

Did you actually play that mission? I did, and it was NOT the "go buy some slaves" idea that you paint it as. It was "Go rescue these victims who are about to be sold into slavery, and do so without causing a riot or a bloodbath or anything because that's not good either". The whole idea was that the slaves were victims and the PCs were supposed to rescue them without murderhobo-ing the whole place.

Maybe do some fact-checking next time, eh?

the problem is that the first solution is to take part in the auction. they could have given you an item to create an illusion that you are meant to switch out with the slaves while in transit, or sleep gas, or any sort of magical deus ex. the first line of the mission after questions is in fact: "after the PCs agree to attend the auction and bid for the enslaved..." with no hint for the gm on what to do if the players want to avoid going to a slave auction.

in regards to my fact checking, i assume you simply misunderstood me and you had no way of knowing i had in fact prepped the mod to run at gencon. this sort of ad hominem attack in response to genuine concerns does not reflect well on the community either.

Ironically, you complain about too much murder-hobo'ing, and then you complain when a mission is set up that doesn't include murder-hobo'ing.

I'm confused.

[Flutter]

Some scarzini selling Pegasus were CN. Could be a a speciest thing though, we know the world was designed for humans

[Sebastian Hirsch]

I played the module in question, and several others on my very first PFS event this weekend (2. German Pathfinder Society Convention), and while I have years of experience with Pathfinder this was quite a pleasant surprise.

Spoiler:

Regarding the adventure in question, I was quite impressed to see my fellow pathfinder players spend their own hard earned gold to ensure that we could save all those unfortunate souls.

And frankly that would have been the end of it, if the doppelgängster hadn’t tried to rob us (and take the slaves to some cruel fate).

Slavery was portrayed as pretty damn evil, but I think the setup made it rather clear, that this was not the time to fight this wrong with violence. Of course this was a Silver Crusade mission, other fractions could have approached the problem differently.

I can really only comment on the Adventure Paths, but Paizo has become more and more inclusionary when it comes to race, sexual preference and many other topics, and I think it is pretty damn amazing.
Considering that my character in the scenario in question was Lem, and the pregen even mentions his history of slavery, well it provided some nice roleplaying opportunities.

To go back to the Hangmans opening questions, I have to admit that I asked myself some of the same questions over that weekend.

After meeting some of the other players at the event my very first scenario was Bonekeep 3, lacking any PFS characters I decided to play Kyra, and frankly I don’t regret that choice all that much.
I was quite surprised by the level of preparation the other players brought to the table, they quickly suggested alchemical aids (like antiplague and antitoxin) and decided to pool their resources for a heroes feast for the group. It was very clear to me that they were very experienced players, and that they had taken the time to prepare their characters and documentation for the game. I assume that time constraints are a very big factor here, but I think it requires a certain amount of system mastery. Of course Pathfinder is a system that tends to reward system mastery.
Adding one inexperienced player with a pregen to a group with “normal” characters should work, but a new player will likely require a lot more time for their turn.

But ok, we finished Bonekeep 3 and while I thought, this could be quite intimidating.

My next scenario was completely different, it involved mostly mystery solving and role playing (Scars of the Third Crusade) and I think it would be ideal for new players. (The adventure was quite confusing for me since I currently run WotR).

The evening slot was filled with the legacy of the Stonelords event, and I have to say that I was pretty damn impressed, it seemed to combine the best elements of MMO raids, while retaining the sense of freedom and agency that one of the key strengths of our hobby.
The difficulty (tier 4) seemed pretty spot on, and it didn’t seem to rely too strongly on specific skills, but rather player creativity.

The next day followed with the Paths we choose (not bad, but I came to the conclusion that some of the pregens don’t have very much to do in many situations, and lack good options to spend their actions - Lem and Kira in particular).

Trial by Machine (got to play my hunter again (finally level 2) ) was a pretty good introduction to some of the new elements (ignoring the debate about the feat) even if hardness seemed proved to be quite a challenge. It had roleplaying opportunities, shining lights and kickass gauntlets (epic high fives^^ ).

The Silver Mount Collection was the last scenario, and playing a level 4 Kyra and I felt pretty damn useless most of the time, but I think this is where group composition comes into play.

If I have taken anything away from this weekend (other than that the organisers and players are awesome people), is that party composition has a huge effect on scenarios (I intentionally chose to play pregens to fill open roles), especially once it comes to knowledge checks and the ability to deal with certain enemies. I heavily suspect that this problem actually gets less relevant once you reach a higher level, since you usually can spend a some money or prestige points to overcome a weakness.

And before I forget, I don’t think that Pathfinder has plenty examples when it comes to the marginalisation of women in their material. Looking back at recent publications (including novels) I really can’t point at specific area without strong female representation. And even the new iconics have plenty of strong female leads (a kickass brawler, swasbuckler, hunter..), so no, I don’t think Paizo products are quite in the same as medieval reenactments where most females end up being maids and housewifes.

Of course it is always a good idea to remind yourself to be inclusive to everybody, since the hobby benefits greatly from a mixed composition of personalities and new points of view.

[trollbill]

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

Slavery isn't lawful neutral in Golarian, slavery is consistently described as evil.

The scenario ** spoiler omitted **

Is there a stat block somewhere that writes up a slaver as neutral on the good/evil axis? If so, I'd be honestly interested to see it. If not, why go on saying Paizo presents slavery as LN when they stat up slavers as varieties of evil?

You know, I have run into quite a few NPC Clerics of Groetus in PFS. Every single one of them was CE so by your reasoning worshipping Groetus is evil. Of course, we know for a fact the rules say you can be even CG and still be a cleric of Groetus, so obviously your reasoning is flawed. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

[Jiggy]

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

[neat stories]

Welcome to PFS! Just to point out (in case you didn't know), Bonekeep is not a normal PFS scenario. It's designed to be just a super-hard combat gauntlet. Your other experiences will have been much closer to the norm. :)

[Ring_of_Gyges]

trollbill wrote:

You know, I have run into quite a few NPC Clerics of Groetus in PFS. Every single one of them was CE so by your reasoning worshipping Groetus is evil. Of course, we know for a fact the rules say you can be even CG and still be a cleric of Groetus, so obviously your reasoning is flawed. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

All published slavers being evil doesn't preclude legions of LG slavers hiding in the wainscoting, what it does preclude is legitimate claims that slavery is *presented* as lawful neutral.

The positive claim that slavery is LN requires evidence in the form of slavers described in print as LN. As far as I can tell there are no such examples.

[Bruno PC]

Corvus Cailean wrote:

Quote:

Why is slavery acceptable in golarion?

So we have a moral excuse for bloody violence upon other sentient beings: namely decapitating the guy holding the whip.

We LIKE violence. The problem is that its usually wrong and using it would make you the bad guy. In order to eliminate this dichotomy, the hero gets a good reason or excuse to engage in dicing people to pieces: to stop an evil wizard, revenge, or a crusade against an injustice so great that smashing peoples heads in becomes a viable moral alternative.

Note: Be careful when going after "the guy holding the whip." as he is not always the bad guy.

One of my PCs, who has been Andoran faction, and is likely to stay in Liberty's Edge, is a fighter-type who wields a whip.

CG, Andoran, what else would you want the whip wielder to be? ;)

[David Haller]

It's certainly the case that, traditionally - and in the US - the market for pen/paper RPGs has been heavily male/white. My comments will focus on the US.

I've gamed for 35 years, and in that time I've seen a considerable increase in female gamers, and have sat at plenty of 50/50 tables, but it's certainly an area which can be improved further. As for people of color, they are grossly underrepresented in pen/paper gaming - even here in Atlanta, which is demographically 54% black, I know three (serious) black gamers, which is almost crazily skewed.

This is interesting, because representation of minorities in online gaming is much greater - what gives?

Relevant aside: Many years ago I was a director at Borders, Inc, and served on its Diversity Board. One thing which puzzled us was why did our share of minority customers, and especially minority employees, trail US demographics? The basic answer turned out to be that we weren't building stores in minority neighborhoods: the retail marketplace reflects proximity. In the digital world, online sales would seem to obviate this, but retail placement still serves a marketing function which can drive online sales, so proximity of in-store displays, face-outs, and so on can affect the online retail environment.

Looking at Atlanta - again, a city whose greater metropolitan area is 54% black - I note that there are no game stores in predominantly black neighborhoods. I mean none - and we have about 20-odd game stores. So, there's basically no proximity marketing of pen/paper RPGs to black consumers in Atlanta. There are other sales venues, like Barnes & Noble, but again, mostly those are in "white" neighborhoods. The driver of RPG sales to black consumers (and I'm focusing on the black market share because I'm familiar with Atlanta) just isn't present.

Now, I have been the CEO of a publishing company, and I considered - being a gamer - launching a game publishing division, so I looked into the realities a bit: game publishers are uniquely at the mercy of physical outlets - game stores, book stores, conventions - to market their products. Paizo, too, is dependent on this framework of market proximity, and so its "target market", realistically, needs to reflect its market reach - and that's where game stores are, which is "white" neighborhoods.

That said, Paizo itself is pretty amazing in featuring - through its iconics - great variation in race and gender, so it's actually well-positioned to market to a very wide segment, demographically. The physical reach just isn't there.

Hence your "privileged white" GenCon environment.

(Internationally, you have plenty of demographic variety in gaming, because you have proximity to those groups in those nations - the Turks, for example, who are quite mad about gaming! If you go to Istanbul, I'm confident you will find game stores in Turkish neighborhoods...)