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Hello Paizonians. In my time as a PFS GM I have run across a few questions about game mechanics and lore not matching up. Every time I bring them up in character I get flak for it, so I want to see if I am missing something. Here goes:
1. Players cannot craft items in PFS. One time I said in character, "We Pathfinders have no crafts of our own to sell because we're not allowed to make stuff," and one of the players said he would bombard me with dice. I don't think the GM was too keen on me saying this either, but if my character had tried to actually make an item, he would not have been able to do so. Is there ever an in-universe explanation for this rule?
2. Oh no, not this again: evil Pathfinders. I hear that evil Pathfinder agents exist in-universe but cannot be played. Can my PFS character kill an evil Pathfinder NPC because the higher-ups in the Society would want that person "reported as dead" for going evil? I would be a whole lot less miffed about this whole thing if ALL evil were disallowed within the Society, not just for PCs.
3. Players cannot PvP but can still be dominated to attack each other. Why can I not, as the BBEG, cast spells on Pathfinders to make them attack each other, leave the area, and write a letter to their Venture-Captain saying that they engaged in PvP and should be reported as dead? Some enemies of the Society have to be intelligent enough to think of that strategy.
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1) If you need a motivation or backstory for why your PC can't craft an item, it is he simply chose to focus his talents elsewhere and lacks the temperament/skills/ability to do so.
2) The PFS society is a neutral organization with agents of all alignments. You cannot attack/kill a creature who's minding its own business, let alone a fellow pathfinder, simply for being evil.
3) The VC would simply investigate the claim, interview the pathfinders and determine magic was the cause for their (involuntary) hostile actions.
Finally, bringing up OOC rules restrictions IC in a knowing manner is a bit meta and not always appreciated as it can be a bit immersion breaking for others. YMMV depend on your table mates.
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1.You're complaining about campaign rules. If you had any experience with network play, you know that there simply is no pratical way to moderate crafting in a game whose players are in the five digits.
I'm not against the rule itself. However, I have not seen an in-universe explanation for it.
3. This is known as a "Dick Judge Move". Also known as a Judge being a Bad MetaPlayer move. NPC's do not get to write letters to Mike Brock.
Oops, I should have been more clear about meaning VCs in the setting, like Ambrus Valsin. I figure that some enemies of the Society will know the rules about how agents can be "reported as dead," whether that means kicked out for life or knifed in an alley, and as such, will try to exploit those rules to get rid of Pathfinders who are a threat to their plans. Sammy T makes a good point about the VC finding out about the magical domination.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@RocMeAsmodeus: those are all OOC rules. IC nobody's aware of them.
IC, PCs aren't aware which pathfinders are PCs and which ones are NPCs. As far as they can tell, there are pathfinders who craft items, and others who focus on other things. Nothing weird there.
Likewise, there's some evil pathfinders. They happen to be NPCs, but your character doesn't know that.
NPC VCs don't report people for PVP. They might look into a case where two pathfinders get into a fight, because "cooperate" is one of the tenets of the Society.
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Well PCs in pfs are very different than every NPC member of the society. Normal pathfinders do all their own research, they decide what/where they want to explore and organize their own expedition. Only when they discover something of value do they bring it to the attention of a venture captain who, if they're lucky/found something good will give them backing to fund further exploration and maybe publish their findings in a pathfinder chronicle.
There is apparently another section of the pathfinder society that is not described in any of the sourcebooks that is comprised of covert military commandos who are sent out on snatch and grab assaults by orders on high. This branch of the pathfinder society has blatant disregard for nations' sovereignty and goes about murdering and stealing at the command of the venture captains. These are the PCs. And for some reason they aren't "evil."
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If you were playing a video game and your character was supposed to save the world from an evil overlord, would you complain that you can't be evil? Would you complain that you can't be the overlord? Would you complain that your character can't drive a car int he game even though there are clearly cars in the game world?
These are the types of complaints you're making. They are not anymore valid here than there.
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Out of Game campaign restrictions on character creation does not constitute an in game societal rule.
You can take craft as a skill, and do it as a day job. If you are particularly good, you can say that you make all the masterwork weapons for the King's Guard if you wanted. You can even take the Mastercraft feat, which allows you to create magic items using the craft skill rather than the magic item crafting feats.
You simply, by campaign rule, are not allowed to create magic items or in general craft (yes I am aware of the allowances for poisoner rogues, alchemists, investigators and bonded items) for yourself or your fellow player characters.
This in no way means that its good rp in any way, shape or form to consider this an in-character thing to discuss.
The same thing can be said about evil and PvP.
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My previous post was a bit tongue in cheek, but basically the campaign writers ignore their own detailed in universe descriptions of the structure of the pathfinder society to create the pfs scenarios we play. So yeah, I think it's expected we ignore all that stuff too. It's done in order to make the game function in the organized play format. I think the only real way to explain it in game is to say your character simply has no interest in doing any of the banned activities. So that way you can ignore it in character as well as out.
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Campaign rules for Player Characters don't have to translate to in-universe rules for everybody. Just because no PFS Player Characters can craft, does not mean that no member of the Pathfinder Society crafts. In the same way, there likely are evil NPC Pathfinders - it just so happens that your PCs are never evil, and if they become evil, they become unplayable. They could well be Pathfinders still, you just can't play as one in a game.
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as soon as the society learns you can craft wands, they kidnap you and chain you in the deepest dungeons of the dark archive and force you to church out all those cure light wounds/infernal healing wands everyone nabs for 2 pp after their first adventure.
I thought they only did that with criminals. Oh wait...
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Murphy's Law of Pathfinder Society: Good-aligned characters, aren't.
If you were playing a video game and your character was supposed to save the world from an evil overlord, would you complain that you can't be evil? Would you complain that you can't be the overlord? Would you complain that your character can't drive a car int he game even though there are clearly cars in the game world?
These are the types of complaints you're making. They are not anymore valid here than there.
I would complain if all the advertisements, manuals, strategy guides and even coding in the disk spoke of the ability to do such things, only to learn that my city's stores don't get the super-special console that allows you to play the other 3/4 of the game that's on the disk.
