Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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John,
Please dont change the chronicles.
If you must, please adjust the ones that arent as desirable.There has to be a reason to make choices. The rewards at the end arent the justification, there what you get for doing what you do.
For those that didnt get what they wanted. GM. Get your first star and use it to replay this delightful special.
I hope that going forward you keep making exciting boons gor the special, and please, dont make rash decisions based on a small echo chamber oc five to ten loud forum voices.
In the words of thr Ghostcrawler. Its hard to be a developer if you let yhe noose overtake the signal, and the signal was that the sheet was awesome, and yes sometimes people miss out, but this was far and beyond anything handed out at a special ever.
No. It's a horrible idea given that there are multiple scenarios that even tie into this season saying that the faction system is borderline evil and should be ignored. Why would you ever emphasize that aspect again is beyond me.
Also, suggesting that you should GM is a pretty ignorant and non-answer. Not every region has the right venue for people to even attempt to GM it let alone play in to make it a viable choice.
All you need is a room and four other people willing to sign the chronicle sheet at the end.
As far as I know GMing in PFS doesn't require a store or anything.
Contributor
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All you need is a room and four other people willing to sign the chronicle sheet at the end.
As far as I know GMing in PFS doesn't require a store or anything.
While you're generally correct, this scenario is a convention-only special, requiring something like 15 tables of players over three days. It's an outlier for PFS.
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Ah! I see!
Thanks!
That would be a problem for me too. :-)
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I have not yet had an opportunity to play the scenario in question and so I don't have personal experience with the mechanics of how the boons are awarded or have not seen the chronicle for it first hand. That said, I have received a considerable amount of spoiler information from having read this thread. I have mixed feelings about that. I normally try to avoid looking at chronicles before I play a scenario so that I do not receive an undue benefit from my Venture Agent status; that said, the discussion in this thread has been spirited and the spoiler information included in some of the posts has certainly helped to clarify why people feel so strongly about the current situation. Without the spoiler information, it would be hard to understand the strong feelings that some have about the issues at hand.
Knowing that I am not completely informed and using what I have seen thus far in the thread, I have some things I would like to express. The first is that I share the opinion that unless the desire is to limit the release of some of the options (i.e., allowing only a certain number of nobles or a limited number of spellslingers), it might be better to allow the options to be unlocked for all participants based on performance of all the tables combined. A limit on the total number of boons you may choose could still keep a cap on some of the options, but if the idea is that one option should not be open to everyone because that could be considered as destabilizing the campaign, this would not be viable. I would like to see campaign leadership allow more archetype options that have previously been disallowed and I would prefer that such options be potentially open to everyone, but I would rather see a limited availability over no availability at all. The advise to GM a scenario to unlock the benefits you want is good, but keeping in mind that some scenarios cannot be GMed by everyone who would want to do that is important. People in smaller lodges are limited by the number of times a scenario can run in their area, even if we aren't talking about scenarios that are limited to larger events or 4- or 5-star GMs.
I am sure that campaign leadership is aware that these forums are an echo chamber for those who feel most strongly about an issue and are hardly representative of the player base as a whole. I would like to express my gratitude to them for the hard work they do to make my favorite pastime available to me. I especially appreciate their recent attempts to shake things up a bit and try new ideas. Not every new concept will be a winner, but I think their success rate has been much, much higher than their failure rate and I encourage them to continue to explore new options. Thank you.
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Yes. But there are ways to replay or get GM credit to unlock.I look forward to the convention. West Michigan, remember. See you soon.
And given that our biggest annual convention is in two weeks and isn't runnng a special this year...you'll have your work cut out for you.
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While I am delighted to get to use this option I easily could not have access to it at all.
I think it was mentioned at some point that classes that can be made legal should just be added to additional resources. This is the most preferred solution to me.
I still can't play any of the classes I wanted from paths of the righteous. Maybe some are a boon by now? I have no idea.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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The boon I'm disappointed in is sovereign court, actually. There's 13 major houses that already have published roles and information about them in Absalom. The boon lets you join a house, cool. But instead of the 13 real ones, it makes up 4 new ones that have no reach other than this scenario.
As to spellslinger; I've already done a ranged magus and currently have a ray specialist arcanist. I don't think I need another character with the same shtick.
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And given that our biggest annual convention is in two weeks and isn't runnng a special this year...you'll have your work cut out for you.But, have you considered GMing the scenario? I hear GMing the scenario is the solution to all these problems.
Solely for informational purposes: What you're proposing requires 5 legal tables run at an approved convention. That's 1 Overseer, 5 GMs, and at least 20 players.
For comparison sake, I live in an area of over half a million people (one million, including the surrounding suburbs) and our one convention a year has trouble filling PFS 2-3 tables at best each day.
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And given that our biggest annual convention is in two weeks and isn't runnng a special this year...you'll have your work cut out for you.But, have you considered GMing the scenario? I hear GMing the scenario is the solution to all these problems.Solely for informational purposes: What you're proposing requires 5 legal tables run at an approved convention. That's 1 Overseer, 5 GMs, and at least 20 players.
For comparison sake, I live in an area of over half a million people (one million, including the surrounding suburbs) and our one convention a year has trouble filling PFS 2-3 tables at best each day.
All valid points. I'm not sure we'll pull off a special at our local con in October, and we could not fill enough tables for last year's special at the convention a state over. It's a thing. It's not a given that any area will be able to run this once, let alone twice for all the people who missed out playing to have a shot at GMing themselves.
That being said, I think there was a fair amount of sarcasm in Disk Elemental's message, with an awareness that GMing is not actually a solution for everyone.
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Less pithily, the online discord group will probably be running it eventually, and can probably have someone hand you a table. Online play takes a little getting used to, but its probably easier than getting to a con for most.
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Contributor
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Specials might actually be released at a faster rate than significant local conventions. And, as noted above, some of our conventions don't or can't host one. By the time one rolls around, it'll likely be running 10-99: The Taxman Cometh or something. So it's less "I demand it immediately" (as TriOmegaZero suggested) and more "now or never".
I'll inquire around about the single other convention I know of, and hope I can find a way halfway across the state. (At least I can afford the couple hundred dollars at the moment.) I don't know if I have the means to pursue online gaming at the moment, but it's under investigation.
Before you ask "Why not organize your own convention?"... we were actually creeping towards being able to do that. We had a nice venue, great player turnout, and were working on building things up very successfully. Then rent got increased beyond what the store owner could afford. Boom... the venue that tied our community together, gone. We're trying to hold together what we can, but half our playerbase is gone, and may not be coming back. So that's... not really something we can count on at the moment.
In any case, I'm not terribly upset about the boon itself. It's out there, and maybe in a few years I'll have the chance to run it. But throwing around "Just GM it!", in this case, does a disservice to geographically-disadvantaged players. Just something to think about. ^_^
Shoot, with two kids I can't even find the time to go to PFS across town. :-)
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The changes in the specials have also made it harder to host one. For one, I believe it now requires approval from the RVC. But if you have the table requirement and get your paperwork in on time, that shouldn't be an issue.
They have also gone from at one point a 3 table requirement (Blood Under Absalom, I think) to a 5 table requirement. We had approval to run Cosmic Captive at the con in March, but we only ended up with 3 tables of players, so we had to switch last minute to tables of Tome of Roghteous Repose and Gallows of Madness.
And according to this thread it sounds like there is now a GM star/Venture Officer requirement to be able to GM in the multitable special? I wasn't aware of that before now, but that limits things even further if it's true. I'm at 3 stars, so I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to GM the special.
I personally don't care about this particular boon. But I can see how the situation is a problem. Especially for people who spent $1,000+ to be able to be at Gencon, only to find out after the fact that they didn't do the right things or got locked out of a boon they might have been waiting for, even though the room as a whole succeeded in that part of the scenario. I just think basing things on the overall success and not the specific table is a better way to handle rewards in a multi-table special. It feels more cooperative and less competitive.
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Contributor
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If you can't host a special at all then both playing and GMing are equally unviable.
I almost went to Gen Con, but my ride had something come up and had to drop out. If I had, I could easily have lost my shot at this boon.
My point, for those who couldn't pick it out of the longer post above, is that not everyone is privileged enough to have access to multiple conventions every month. "Just GM it!" doesn't help them.
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I mean, the sad thing is the only reason we didn't have a special this year is because the PFS presence at the con was organized late due to VO turnover, and local organizing bandwidth was being taken up by the closure of two large FLGS venues in the last month. It's usually a big hit, and I usually do GM. (I think we were 7-8 tables last year, and could have done more if we'd had more GMs.)
Of course, if we *had* done a special, it would probably have been 8-99. :)
I refuse to believe that there is a VO/star requirement for GMing a multi-table special. Overseeing or organizing, sure. But there can't be one for GMing...there simply aren't enough bodies to make that work.
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Shoot, with two kids I can't even find the time to go to PFS across town. :-)One more and you're a legal table...
And my wife... Hmm...
Edit: Hmm is not my wife, just thinking out loud, sorry if I confused anyone. :-)
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Shoot, with two kids I can't even find the time to go to PFS across town. :-)One more and you're a legal table...And my wife... Hmm...
Edit: Hmm is not my wife, just thinking out loud, sorry if I confused anyone. :-)
Ha!!!!!
Spelling is your friend...thinking noise traditionally has one more m.
Hmmm...
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I apologize if my mention of 4- or 5-star GM requirements was thought to apply to multi-table specials. I am not aware of any GM-star requirement for those, I was just thinking in general terms of the various restrictions that might limit someone's ability to acquire a boon by GMing a scenario if they missed the opportunity in play.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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The boon I'm disappointed in is sovereign court, actually. There's 13 major houses that already have published roles and information about them in Absalom. The boon lets you join a house, cool. But instead of the 13 real ones, it makes up 4 new ones that have no reach other than this scenario.
As to spellslinger; I've already done a ranged magus and currently have a ray specialist arcanist. I don't think I need another character with the same shtick.
I don't mind....provided these new 4 come up in major ways in the future.
Though yes, I did think it was puzzling that they made up 4 new houses instead of using previously published material.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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The boon I'm disappointed in is sovereign court, actually. There's 13 major houses that already have published roles and information about them in Absalom. The boon lets you join a house, cool. But instead of the 13 real ones, it makes up 4 new ones that have no reach other than this scenario.
As to spellslinger; I've already done a ranged magus and currently have a ray specialist arcanist. I don't think I need another character with the same shtick.
I don't mind....provided these new 4 come up in major ways in the future.
Though yes, I did think it was puzzling that they made up 4 new houses instead of using previously published material.
Could be something that is coming up in a future book or is PFS specific stuff like with what happened with season 7.
Organized Play Lead Developer
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Upon reviewing Assault on Absalom with other members of the team, comparing notes from the event at Gen Con, and looking through varied feedback from the community, we’ve made several changes to this special adventure. You can find those listed in the adventure's product page discussion.
Organized Play Manager
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I am home; some of us don't get paid to post to these forums!Hmmmmmmmmm...
Go big or go home!
Most of our message board posters aren't paid employees.
Please keep the focus of this thread on John's post and the changes we made to 9-00, not the arguments about attending cons or GM vs play. Thanks!
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Upon reviewing Assault on Absalom with other members of the team, comparing notes from the event at Gen Con, and looking through varied feedback from the community, we’ve made several changes to this special adventure. You can find those listed in the adventure's product page discussion.
Yay!