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I actually like that idea. Myself, I kind of hate play at level 1 and 2. I've done it so much over the years, that level 1 in particular is the largest chunk of play, but I also tend to find it the least interesting. There are only so many lowest level threats, (Orc, Skelobies, Goblolds, minor traps, etc. . .), and because so many classes have 2+dump stat skills, play feels very binary, you can either try it or can't for a few levels until you get another skill point to actually put in a Rank.
This sort of thing also seems like it could be another option to help mitigate some of the level (Tier) gap issues, too, but also cater a bit to the "Long day at work, I just want to kick back, roll some dice and kill stuff a bit" I'm certain we all feel sometimes.
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Quests are a recruiting option, I think. When you see them operate at conventions you see players dropping in and out for quick "pickup" games, be they old hats or newbies, and gravitating toward other games (or away) as a result of playing them. Encounters was expected to be a recruiting option at the store level that would operate the same way; a high population option, with young players in mind, or those who had limited time, etc. Considering how many people are playing, however, it seems to be the PREFERRED option for D&D.
In light of this information I believe Quests are being mis-evaluated and underutilized.
Yeah, quests as they exist today seem like they should only be used as a recruiting tool for new players at conventions. I don't know why anyone would bother with them in any other context.
My local group scheduled Phantom Phenomena at our store's game day a few weeks ago. I signed up to play, not knowing anything about quests, and I didn't realize it was pregen only. We had two tables, both playing all 6 parts in a single session. Everyone at both tables were experienced PFS regulars who had PCs they could have brought if that was allowed. We enjoyed the game overall, but we spent half our time making fun of the pregens.
I decided I'll never play a quest again as long as you're required to play pregens in them.
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Quests are a recruiting option, I think. When you see them operate at conventions you see players dropping in and out for quick "pickup" games, be they old hats or newbies, and gravitating toward other games (or away) as a result of playing them. Encounters was expected to be a recruiting option at the store level that would operate the same way; a high population option, with young players in mind, or those who had limited time, etc. Considering how many people are playing, however, it seems to be the PREFERRED option for D&D.
In light of this information I believe Quests are being mis-evaluated and underutilized.
Yeah, quests as they exist today seem like they should only be used as a recruiting tool for new players at conventions. I don't know why anyone would bother with them in any other context.
My local group scheduled Phantom Phenomena at our store's game day a few weeks ago. I signed up to play, not knowing anything about quests, and I didn't realize it was pregen only. We had two tables, both playing all 6 parts in a single session. Everyone at both tables were experienced PFS regulars who had PCs they could have brought if that was allowed. We enjoyed the game overall, but we spent half our time making fun of the pregens.
I decided I'll never play a quest again as long as you're required to play pregens in them.
Ambush in Absalom is tiered and doesn't require pregens, and the Open Call requires that submissions be tiered which suggests that if any of them ever get published they won't either (if you have pregens you don't need subtiers; you just rate it for the level of the pregens). So there's hope, if a slim one.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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@ Furious Thune: I promise I'm not trying to simply make high-handed statements without stuff to back them up. It's more a matter of, "Jeez, giving out that kind of detail is actually work..." I *want* to, because I truly enjoy talking about this industry. But finding the time to do it isn't easy.
I need to update my business plan sometime in the next month. I'm hoping I can piggy-back a little sales presentation here onto the work I'm doing for that.
In the meantime, trust me: I know what I'm talking about. (-;
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Based on a few of the other posts in this thread and things that have been floating around in my head, I present the fledgling idea of "Pathfinder Society Journeys."
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Pathfinder Society Journeys
- A Journeys season is 12 sessions long. Each session can be played in two hours or less. It is recommended that sessions be run weekly, on the same day and time each week. However, because PFS Journeys sessions are run using Quests, coordinators can schedule in whatever many fits their group's needs.
- The Quests used to run a season of Journeys play comprise a story that is loosely tied together. But each Quest can stand alone, making them excellent filler for in-between sessions of regular PFS play, or for use as "demo games" at conventions. Of course, enterprising GMs can take an entire season of Quests and turn them into fully realized stories that can launch campaigns. Coordinators on the lookout for truly challenging experiences for their groups could schedule all 12 Quests as a gaming "marathon" for special events like charity games or celebrity games. The idea behind the Quests model is to be flexible. The idea behind the Journeys model is to fully utilize all the Quests in a story.
- Completing any single Quest grants the player access to a minor boon given out on a PFS Chronicle sheet.
- Completing any two Quests grants the player 1 xp and 500 gp, which will be noted by the GM on a PFS Chronicle sheet.
- Completing an entire season grants the player access to a special boon (a free Wayfinder, or some other Pathfinder-specific item, would be cool, or perhaps something like the Treasure Map boon). Only completing all 12 Quests from a single PFS Journeys season will grant access to this boon.
- A player may drop out of Journeys play at any time and take his character to regular PFS play, but once that character has left the Journeys season to play in a regular PFS scenario, access to the special boon for completing the season becomes unattainable.
- Characters who continue play each and every week may "carry" items from one session to another. This means that found loot can be utilized inside the story and doesn't "disappear" at the end of any 2 hour session. Such loot can be tracked on a PFS Inventory Tracking Sheet, and signed and dated by a GM, with the the most recent session title noted each time. If the player misses the next session, her found loot will be forfeited, though new loot can be found and carried forward starting at whatever point the player begins play again.
I'd love to see something like this. I think it would perfectly capture the idea envisioned by the line of Quests that have been published so far, and allow players another avenue to get PCs to third level that would be entertaining and worthwhile. Most importantly, it would be an awesome recruiting tool.
I'm already trying to find a way to break an adventure like Crypt of the Everflame up into six Quests so that I can try the skeleton of the idea in my shops. Of course, my marketing efforts will only reach my own customers. If I had the weight of a company like Paizo behind the marketing efforts for something like this, I think D&D Encounters-type success would not be hard to achieve.
Thoughts? Criticisms? Other ideas? I'd be happy to hear them and see my idea refined.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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That's the rub, isn't it? I know development time on this would be more than the 6 scenarios it equals (you have to tie the story together somehow, and come up with unique chronicles, for instance). So, from a realistic standpoint, I'd be pretty happy with just one to start (and not bother with any x/year ideas). Bluntly, I'd like to see what it does before committing to doing more.
Assuming it worked, and did everything that I'd want it to do, I think it would be reasonable to have two per year. "Down time" between leagues is pretty normal in most orgplay games (think Warmachine leagues, or board game groups). So if there was a three month lag between each season, that would be expected within the industry. Plus, that gives me (the store owner) time to coordinate everything that needs to happen to launch the next season (recruit GMs, market the event, come up with interesting add-ons to keep players engaged week to week). It also allows for "makeup" games to be played between seasons for those players who may have missed some sessions and don't want to miss out on the boon or xp/gp.
I guess I see two seasons a year adding (roughly) 12 scenarios to your workload. So, I'll tell you what, I'll cut you a deal: I'll stop waiving the "Publish 3 Scenarios Per Month" sign around, and let you guys go forward with this, instead. (-;
Edit: Also, I think it goes without saying that these seasons would need to cost something. I pay around $60 to run a Warmachine league, and a Fantasy Flight Living Card Game league kit costs $25. That would be your benchmark. I do recoup some of that money by charging a league fee, but that would be pretty easy to apply on a session-by-session basis for something like what I proposed above.
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Hmmm. So at 1 XP per two quests in the season, you'd be looking at coming out the end and into normal PFS play with a 6 XP third level character. Do you ramp up the difficulty slightly halfway through the season to account for characters being second level at that point if they've played from the beginning? Or do you tier it 1-5 and allow people to bring in existing characters rather than starting fresh?
In any case, I think some sort of interlinked quest system would do well as a replacement for the full First Steps series as an introduction even if Paizo doesn't go with a regular season model. The Confirmation and Wounded Wisp are all well and good, but there's something to be said for spending the whole first character level getting new players up to speed rather than just a single scenario.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Hmmm. So at 1 XP per two quests in the season, you'd be looking at coming out the end and into normal PFS play with a 6 XP third level character. Do you ramp up the difficulty slightly halfway through the season to account for characters being second level at that point if they've played from the beginning?
You can't. If the Quests are going to be independent and capable of being run by themselves, they have to be written as tier 1. Perhaps there can be a "difficulty adjustment" that allows for the Advanced template to be added to a creature if the APL at the table is 2 instead of 1. But I wouldn't go further than that.
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That's what I figured. It does present that difficulty, though it's fairly simple to write them all for Tier 1-2, since subtier 2 is a small adjustment from subtier 1 if it's really a concern at all.
I disagree. I think the relative power difference between a level 1 and level 2 character can be huge. The biggest single jump is when you get 2 prestige and enough money to buy your characters basic stuff but the extra level can also matter a lot (or nearly not at all, depending on the character). Level 2 dawnflower dancing magus, paladin, lots of multi class characters are all examples of characters who gain a lot at leveln2.
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I like the quests / journeys ideas. Something else to consider might be altering the format of the quests slightly so that they provide a nice gold, boon, or item reward in lieu of an XP reward, they could also be modeled as a "repeatable" to simulate an ongoing need to be solved, such as gather some type of resource for the society, provide security at a contested dig site, or escort a courier from point A to B. This could be easily scaled so that one quest could cover several sub-tiers and include a variety of encounters.
For example; using the random d6 tables like in The Confirmation you have a chart for the quest giver, one for the non-combat encounter, and one for the combat encounter chart for tier 1-2, another for 3-5. 6-8, and 9-11.
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Based on a few of the other posts in this thread and things that have been floating around in my head, I present the fledgling idea of "Pathfinder Society Journeys."
.
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.
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.Pathfinder Society Journeys
...
- A Journeys season is 12 sessions long. Each session can be played in two hours or less. It is recommended that sessions be run weekly, on the same day and time each week. However, because PFS Journeys sessions are run using Quests, coordinators can schedule in whatever many fits their group's needs.
- The Quests used to run a season of Journeys play comprise a story that is loosely tied together. But each Quest can stand alone, making them excellent filler for in-between sessions of regular PFS play, or for use as "demo games" at conventions. Of course, enterprising GMs can take an entire season of Quests and turn them into fully realized stories that can launch campaigns. Coordinators on the lookout for truly challenging experiences for their groups could schedule all 12 Quests as a gaming "marathon" for special events like charity games or celebrity games. The idea behind the Quests model is to be flexible. The idea behind the Journeys model is to fully utilize all the Quests in a story.
- Completing any single Quest grants the player access to a minor boon given out on a PFS Chronicle sheet.
- Completing any two Quests grants the player 1 xp and 500 gp, which will be noted by the GM on a PFS Chronicle sheet.
- Completing an entire season grants the player access to a special boon (a free Wayfinder, or some other Pathfinder-specific item, would be cool, or perhaps something like the Treasure Map boon). Only completing all 12 Quests from a single PFS Journeys season will grant access to this boon.
- A player may drop out of Journeys play at any time and take his character to regular PFS play, but once that character has left the Journeys season to play in a regular PFS scenario, access to the special boon for completing the season becomes unattainable.
I am interested in this. Something tells me that this could produce a better First Steps-style mission better than First Steps I did.
My mind is brainstorming potential plots - which is annoying because it should be doing other things right now. This could be really cool.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I rather like Drogon's idea. I think it could work, especially for the "after work" crowd.
I also think these shorter by design adventures give an opportunity to write slightly different combats. They'll tend to 15-minute workdays, which can shift which classes work well.
I've noticed that Ezren is perfectly effective in the quest format for example, bringing a lot of strong skills. His relatively few prepared spells aren't such a problem given the short workday.
The same holds for quests with actual PCs instead of pregens; low level tends to be a bit dreary for casters that need to divide a handful of spells among four encounters. With the number of encounters halved, they can cut loose a bit more.
Seen from another perspective: since PCs expect to go nova in quests, you can write the combats with novas in mind. (Although, carefully; beware of newbie-friendliness and fragile L1 PCs as well.)
It's a different genre with different possibilities and challenges.
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Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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After reading Drogon's suggestion, my mind started trying to find ways to retrofit the existing replayable scenarios into this format.
The problem would be that two of those aren't fully mix-and-match, since Confirmation and Wounded Wisp have anchored beginnings and ends. Thoughts?
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In my personal opinion, First Steps was much better than both The Confirmation and Wounded Wisp.
Both Wounded Wisp and the Confirmation are largely, again in my opinion, yawn fests, whose only purpose for players, is to get a little free XP and GP before doing anything else. From the GM's side, they are there to teach players that A.) there is a RIGHT WAY to play and B.) the most basic of game mechanics, where a roll of a 2 can get you a success.
First Steps on the other hand, focused on introducing the players to a variety of different NPC's and also challenge types. Both allowed for different ways to complete the different parts, and really all that the later two offered is a random encounter table.
Part of the reason I bring this up is that I personally view The Confirmation and to a lesser extent Wounded Wisp as very, very poor "intro" scenarios.
With First Steps, I could see it working very well as a quest that's broken up into 2 or three parts each, though it might need a little bit of rewriting, (and I just mean to include some of the missions later rather than up front).
owner - Redcap's Corner, Owner - Redcap's Corner
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Like Drogon, I'm the owner of two reasonably successful game stores in a metropolitan area (in my case Redcap's Corner in Philadelphia, but our sales figures and attendance numbers are very similar to his). Drogon and I have had several reasonably high-profile disagreements with regard to PFS in the past, but I wanted to chime in here and say that I agree with virtually every word he's written in this thread. My Pathfinder sales have dropped off a lot, and D&D is hard to keep in stock. My PFS numbers aren't the highest they've ever been, but they're still reasonably strong, with three to four tables (often full) regularly firing every week. Unfortunately, that's at least partially because I'm not running any D&D events at the moment while I regroup and lockdown a stable of DMs. I just wanted to take the time to echo his point of view, and offer another substantiated take.
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A thing to consider: how does first-level rebuild interact with quests? If it becomes well-known that Journey #2 is talk-heavy and #3 is a crawl through the cellar of mindless undead, will we have a lot of PCs suddenly showing completely new builds?How did/does it interact with things like First Steps and the Confirmation?
Both First Steps and The Confirmation allow you to play your own character, and also sort of expect it as an introduction into the setting or basic rules. While there is nothing saying you can't play a pregen, I don't think I've ever seen it, myself, and it's kind of counter intuitive.
For more experienced players that have already played through them, First Steps (even just part 1) offers a rather large scope of encounter types and threats, and also allows for plenty of ways to tackle them. So different pregens really wouldn't have too much of an advantage or disadvantage overall. They might be weak in one part but would probably be strong in another, and might offer different options that where not possible for a different class/combination. When all three parts where legal, there was also a big incentive (out of game) to not use a pregen, because as a multi-parter, there was more of a reward for the player to complete all three with the same character, and part of that was that many of them got to have some face-to-face time with their Faction heads and important NPCs that may not come up much otherwise. I think there are only maybe two other Scenarios, for example that players got to meet and interact with Ollysta Zadrian of the Silver Crusade (other than First Steps), while others like Zarta refuse to go away. Amara Li had been fairly common, but it was pretty uncommon to talk to Guaril, (at the time).
The Confirmation is more of an intro into the mechanics, and a lot of the challenges are designed to make something successful no matter what (except a Nat 1). It too has some variety in play style, but outright teaches combat is bad, heavy RP is rewarded, and also except for combat, (or a specific combat really), sort of ingrains that <the threat of> failure is an illusion. Less combat focused pregens have advantages, particularly those that have access to Knowledge skills, but most of the exploration challenges have a DC of 10, (with additional free bonuses), so anyone can attempt them and it generally doesn't require too much luck. An untrained character with an Int of 10 probably has a free +1 or +2, and probably also has a +2 Circumstance bonus thrown in, too, so a roll of a 6 or higher on the dice is a success, or at least an Aid Another. Another factor is that a lot of the rewards are extra bits of backstory and explanation, which is a lot less important on replay, so as long as there is a single character with a few specific skills that are generally common, (Know Arcana, History, Religion, Perception), the entire party is golden.
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I'd rather see First Steps be taken out of retirement.Agreed. I always liked all 3 parts of that series. Taking the faction stuff out and allowing FS 2 and 3 to come back without it would be great, and offer more options for replayable level 1 scenarios.
I'd leave the Faction stuff, honestly, and just remind the players that Pathfinders are time travelers in a sense. While the Factions and Faction Leaders are different, one in particular, they have evolved over time, and are now just different. Both the Shadow Lodge and Lantern Lodge still exist. Most of the others have just changed their names (and well, ideologies, too). But a lot of the coolness of First Steps was that it allowed new players to explore the different Factions (when they mattered) and at the end choose which one they liked, which is still very cool for new players to PFS who don't really know the difference between Liberty's Edge and the Scarab Sages other than a few words and lines in a book they may not have even read. First Steps went beyond that, and allowed people to see how the different Factions thought and what they asked for in practice, (like favoring certain skills or action types) for their overall agenda.
That sort of opportunity doesn't really exist any longer.
Another thing that this could really help new players with is understanding how these NPCs are important for other Scenarios that mention them. A new player going through Destiny of the Sands and doesn't have much knowledge of PFS outside of that and a few other scenarios just wouldn't have the same understanding of most of it, because they have never interacted with Amenopheus or Grandmaster Tourch, despite both of them having a long and important history with the PFS setting. Being told someone is important isn't the same as having actually experienced them, (even if both have been considered traitors by some).
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The Confirmation is more of an intro into the mechanics, and a lot of the challenges are designed to make something successful no matter what (except a Nat 1). It too has some variety in play style, but outright teaches combat is bad, heavy RP is rewarded, and also except for combat, (or a specific combat really), sort of ingrains that <the threat of> failure is an illusion. Less combat focused pregens have advantages, particularly those that have access to Knowledge skills, but most of the exploration challenges have a DC of 10, (with additional free bonuses), so anyone can attempt them and it generally doesn't require too much luck. An untrained character with an Int of 10 probably has a free +1 or +2, and probably also has a +2 Circumstance bonus thrown in, too, so a roll of a 6 or higher on the dice is a success, or at least an Aid Another. Another factor is that a lot of the rewards are extra bits of backstory and explanation, which is a lot less important on replay, so as long as there is a single character with a few specific skills that are generally common, (Know Arcana, History, Religion, Perception), the entire party is golden...
...interesting.
I have no idea what scenario you've been playing, but the one you're talking about is not the same Confirmation that I've been playing. The Confirmation that I've played has four combat encounters that are always going to be combat encounters. The Confirmation I've been playing allows for the possibility of failure, and people can even die in it.
Unless you are one of those who think that "stop wasting my time with all this roleplay and lore crap, let me roll initiative", I really don't see how you can view The Confirmation as a "combat is bad" module.
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I try to be one of those who empowers the players to continue doing the things they are obviously enjoying, since I run more than I DM. If they want to explore the lore, fantastic. If they want to talk to a random not-normally-named NPC, great. I'll just pretend the stuff they should have gotten from someone else later comes through now, and let them have fun. If they want to kill everything, cool. I'll try to describe the combats a little more bloody and even give them a little narrative power when they crit or something.
My last encounter with the Confirmation was during the Vigilante Playtest, where all of us made Vigilanties, HERE, and a lot of our commentary for the playtest was based off of despite how underpowered we felt, we still managed to succeed with the Confirmation which all but I believe 2 of us had already played.
I wasn't making any judgment calls on preferred play style, but rather just commenting that The Confirmation looses much of it's charm once you have played or run it the first time. Besides a minor random encounter table, there isn't much variety involved, to the point I've actually had players ask me to "grind them through it" just to be able to start out at with some money, because they have already played it enough to know all the lore, riddles, and everything.