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Just how much power does a GM have to make the scenario as fun as possible for the group?
The next scenario I am running is the Mists of Mwangi:
In this scenario it is the very conservatively laid out Blakros Museum. The initial entryway having 3 doors. The problem I see with this one is that if the players pick the middle door by either chance or metagaming it will lead them directly to the final encounter, and since the secondary success condition simply involves NOT killing the guys in the side rooms then the players can very easily beat the entire scenario, even accidently, in less than 30 minutes and get full credit.
So I was wondering, would it be within my power to simply say the middle door is locked (with a high enough DC to deter but not prevent lockpicking) and the key is on Sheg's keyring?
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No, you cannot really do that, as it would be changing the mechanics of the scenario, something you're not allowed to do in PFS.
It is unfortunate that some, especially earlier scenarios have opportunities to skip large parts like that. There is usually the opposite problem however, that skipping will mean losing loot and possibly xp, if the shortest route does not have enough encounters.
This is usually why players do not skip, they know that they might not get everything. In some scenarios going back to missed places is difficult/impossible, which is problematic.
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If they go straight to the final door, they do not get full credit for the scenario. To receive full XP for a scenario, you must complete at least 3 encounters (Guide to Organized play pg. 36). Additionally, gold is only awarded for encounters completed. Thus, if you skip to the last combat as the only combat, you would get 0 XP, prestige/fame based on the conditions listed in the Secondary Conditions document, and gold from the final encounter.
You can't change the scenario to say the door is locked. It is not called out as being locked in the scenario, and thus, it isn't.
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To receive full XP for a scenario, you must complete at least 3 encounters (Guide to Organized play pg. 36).
Ah perfect! I missed that little gem of a rule. I'll just inform my group that going through that door (if they try to) will result in them gaining very little credit and allow them to make their own decision.
Thanks guys!
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Don't worry about it. I've run it over 20 times.
I think most players will stay on the rails. I should say, rather, I know most players stay on the rails in this one. I've put over a hundred of them through Mists. The more experienced ones will meta-game and fool themselves into believing they need to explore the closer rooms first because there's probably a handy tool or helpful bit of info that's vital to the mission's success in there.
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Sometimes during the course of a scenario, your players might surprise you with a creative solution to an encounter (or the entire scenario) that you didn’t see coming and that isn’t expressly covered in the scenario. If, for example, your players manage to roleplay their way through a combat and successfully accomplish the goal of that encounter without killing the antagonist, give the PCs the same reward they would have gained had they defeated their opponent in combat.
If that scene specifically calls for the PCs to receive gold piece rewards based on the gear collected from the defeated combatants, instead allow the PCs to find a chest of gold (or something similar) that gives them the same rewards. Additionally, if the PCs roleplayed past an NPC who carries a specific potion or scroll that the PCs might be granted access to on the scenario’s Chronicle sheet, don’t cross that item off the sheet—instead, allow the PCs to find the item elsewhere as a reward for creatively resolving the encounter without resorting to combat.
Pathfinder Society Organized Play never wants to give the impression that the only way to solve a problem is to kill it—rewarding the creative use of skills and roleplaying not only make Society games more fun for the players, but it also gives the GM a level of flexibility in ensuring players receive the rewards they are due.
Players shouldn't be punished here - they simply got lucky enough to find a shortcut and risked not looking in the other rooms to potentially find a vital clue.
The rule about having to play 3 encounters before getting rewards is referencing what happens should a player die during the scenario, not if they bypass part of it. If a player dies before they complete 3 encounters (be it through combat or creatively), then they miss out on some rewards.
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For most players a 1 in 3 chance to accidently end the game in less than 30 minutes isn't being lucky, its UNlucky. Most of us are there to play the game and have fun, not grind out XP as fast as possible. I know that if that happened to me as a player I'd be really upset about it.
I will stick with warning my players that stepping through that door will directly result in 0xp. Not threateningly, just a friendly reminder, they are welcome to continue if they choose. I'll phrase it in a narrative sort of way like:
"Something about this door feels final, you feel as though there is more to do yet and perhaps if you explore some more the Society will be more grateful."
Or something to that effect.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I disagree, Avatar-1, in both particulars. The "reward creative solutions" doesn't apply. The PCs who go straight for the end room don't do anything clever to avoid a combat; they don't know one exists.
For example, some treasures are hidden, and there's a Perception DC to locate them. If the party searches, and doesn't meet the DC, they don't get the treasure. Are you suggesting that a party that doesn't even bother to look around should get the reward?
The 3 encounters rule doesn't require the players to die.
I agree with DrParty 06; if the party goes straight for the end chamber, solves the situation, and never explores the rest of the museum, they don't get the full rewards. (But, Crazy Alchemist, the scenario doesn't necessarily end when the big bad guys go down, either. There's nothing to keep the PCs from looking in the other rooms after the fact.)
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For example, some treasures are hidden, and there's a Perception DC to locate them. If the party searches, and doesn't meet the DC, they don't get the treasure. Are you suggesting that a party that doesn't even bother to look around should get the reward?
I think there's probably more leeway for the GM to cross off items that are hidden away in the room that'd require a skill check to find. The PFS guide's rules conflict a little here between Creative Solutions and Step 7 of Filling Out The Chronicle Sheet on p36, which still talks about crossing off items.
Personally, I wouldn't bother crossing off items unless I felt the players did something in the scenario to say that they really didn't deserve that loot, where any reasonable player would also think the same.
Remember that items on a chronicle rarely even get used, and having crossed off items on a sheet can leave a sour taste in a player's mouth (unless they feel like they should've/could've done more).
As for 3 encounters, the full text is:
PCs who die during a scenario and are raised receive full XP for that scenario, so long as they completed at least three encounters.
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Avatar-1, you're also missing page 36:
A PC may receive XP only if he survives the scenario or is raised from the dead by the scenario’s conclusion and completed at least three encounters over the course of the adventure.That could easily be parsed as "(survives or raised) AND (at least three encounters)" in addition to how you parse it, so it's not exactly cut and dry.
This is how I parse it as well.
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Also, note, one strong option would be to use the faction missions that this scenario provides. If you think that the players need justification, you can state that the player experience would be better if they played the missions... and perhaps hint that some scenarios have the factions missions as part of their secondary condition.
In this case, the faction missions will tend to keep them on the rails... they'll want to explore everywhere in a breadth-first-search.
Also, note, the Venture-Captain suggests that they check in at the office, as I recall. This is at the top of page 4. You could also have him suggest that they check every room, as a good operating procedure, or something.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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It might also work if you just tell the players that this scenario was written assuming that the PCs wouldn't try to beeline to the final room as fast as possible, ignoring all distractions and side-treks; and that the scenario is just more fun if you follow that expectation.
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Also if I recall the scenario properly going to the final encounter first does negate some of the other combats in the scenario but not all of them. I agree with the suggestion that as long as they don't call it a day and leave right after the big fight they should be able to get full credit.
Similar thing happened when I played the Penumbral Accords, our party stumbled in the final fight as our second encounter but the GM gave us the opportunity to clear out the rest of the museum because there were still enemies lurking around there.
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Ascalaphas, the problem isn't that I have players who try to purposefully power their way through to the end as quickly as possible. Those are easy to deal with. The problem is that, the way this particular scenario is designed, the players can very easily do that without intending to, ending the game almost instantly while TRYING to simply explore. And it isn't through some obscure hard to find path that only clever or lucky players can find, its simply a matter of accidently going through the wrong/right one of three doors, 1/3 chance of instantly ending the scenario and with no way to go back (since the win condition in this one elimates all the rest of the encounters). Ultimately its just a very poorly designed scenario. Dropping a "GM Hint" should do the trick though.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I would just leave it to chance. If they do end up picking the door that leads straight to the boss fight, you can always remind them AFTER they have killed the boss, and are calling it quits.
That way you can give them the freedom to decide what to do. They might just go off and explore even with the boss dead, or not end up there at all.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Crazy Alchemist: I've played the scenario myself, and I see your point. That's why I suggested that sometimes it's easier to just tell the players "yes, you can do that, but you'll just have more fun today if you don't". However, Auke's suggestion is actually nicer, because it's subtle enough that I don't think it's a violation of the scenario, and it also doesn't break the fourth wall.
Also, I think that in this case, if you solve the final encounter first, some of the other encounters resolve themselves;
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I would love to see a venn diagram of "people who gripe when they think someone has eschewed 'roleplaying' and reduced their PC to just a set of stats looking for loot" and "people who will withhold XP/gp/items from anyone who does roleplay something more than just a set of stats looking for loot".
If there's no in-character reason to do X, then punishing players for not doing X tells them to stop acting in character. Don't complain when they comply.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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There are compelling in character reasons to not rush the final encounter.
Sometimes, yes. I wasn't talking about those. That's why I said "If there's no in-character reason".
Usually, in-character motives will carry you through most/all of the scenario without issues.
Sometimes, there will be a situation where there's still content remaining even though any reasonable effort at roleplaying will point to being finished. In these situations, reducing the Chronicle rewards tells the players "you shouldn't have roleplayed". GMs who do this have no ground to stand on when they later get irritated that players heeded their instructions and stopped roleplaying.
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I would love to see a venn diagram of "people who gripe when they think someone has eschewed 'roleplaying' and reduced their PC to just a set of stats looking for loot" and "people who will withhold XP/gp/items from anyone who does roleplay something more than just a set of stats looking for loot".
If there's no in-character reason to do X, then punishing players for not doing X tells them to stop acting in character. Don't complain when they comply.
I think you are misunderstanding here Jiggy. I'm not complaining that the characters are creatively finishing the scenario and I'm punishing them for it. I'm worried that they will accidently make the game not fun for themselves by finishing too early without realizing it. My players are all great and are there just to have fun and not XP grind, they are there to play. And cutting the game down to nothing just because they made one bad decision by chance is not fair to them.
I started this thread to come up with a rules legal way to prevent my players from accidently making the game boring for themselves.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I would love to see a venn diagram of "people who gripe when they think someone has eschewed 'roleplaying' and reduced their PC to just a set of stats looking for loot" and "people who will withhold XP/gp/items from anyone who does roleplay something more than just a set of stats looking for loot".
If there's no in-character reason to do X, then punishing players for not doing X tells them to stop acting in character. Don't complain when they comply.
I think you are misunderstanding here Jiggy. I'm not complaining that the characters are creatively finishing the scenario and I'm punishing them for it. I'm worried that they will accidently make the game not fun for themselves by finishing too early without realizing it. My players are all great and are there just to have fun and not XP grind, they are there to play. And cutting the game down to nothing just because they made one bad decision by chance is not fair to them.
I started this thread to come up with a rules legal way to prevent my players from accidently making the game boring for themselves.
I was commenting more on some general trends I've seen in this and other threads, rather than your specific example.
EDIT:
For a personal example, I ran another Blackros Museum scenario for a table of mostly newbies, who of course would have no idea which rooms would contain plot-relevant things. Purely by chance, they ended up at the final encounter with a couple of rooms still unexplored. However, they completely resolved 100% of what the scenario was about, with no loose ends left hanging. There was no in-character reason to do anything but go report back to the VC that they had saved the day.
I gave them full credit, congratulating them on a better-than-average success. It seems there are some GMs who would not have given them full credit, thereby sending a clear message that this is a game about finding excuses to steal, rather than about roleplaying a character.
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Contributor
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This post is in response to Jiggy's general observations above, so I'm hiding it behind spoiler tags to somewhat diminish its thread-derailing potential. As for Mists of Mwangi, yeah, I'd just encourage them to explore the rest of the museum if they do "skip" straight to the big encounter.
I would love to see a venn diagram of "people who gripe when they think someone has eschewed 'roleplaying' and reduced their PC to just a set of stats looking for loot" and "people who will withhold XP/gp/items from anyone who does roleplay something more than just a set of stats looking for loot".
If there's no in-character reason to do X, then punishing players for not doing X tells them to stop acting in character. Don't complain when they comply.
My experience of gaming is that such a diagram would show something close to a 0% overlap.
That said...
In this campaign (PFS), the number of times "acting in character" might legitimately derail a scenario to a significant degree could probably be plotted on an asymptotic curve approaching zero. This is clearly by design.
In my view, there are three major reasons for this.
First, the characters are Pathfinders, and as such are required to act according to the values implicit in the "Three Commandments" of Explore, Report, and Cooperate.
Second, the characters were created according to the rules in the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play, every edition of which I've read contains language like that found at page 9 of Version 6.0: "No evil alignments are allowed in Pathfinder Society Organized Play." This stricture curbs the reasons I, at least, have most often seen set forth to excuse derailing play, those being selfishness and greed.
Third, the players themselves are bound by the directive at page 19 of the current Guide: "Playing your character is not an excuse for childish behavior." Manufacturing an "in-character" reason to derail a scenario is childish.
This is not to say that fun, interesting, nuanced characters can't be created and played in home play that create these particular kind of challenges, but simply that such challenges have, in my view, a very low likelihood of coming up when players and characters are operating under the rules and assumptions of PFS.
Further, characters who don't intentionally derail can obviously also be fun, interesting, and nuanced, so operating under those rules and assumptions should in no way diminish the enjoyment to be had in PFS.
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I gave them full credit, congratulating them on a better-than-average success. It seems there are some GMs who would not have given them full credit, thereby sending a clear message that this is a game about finding excuses to steal, rather than about roleplaying a character.
While I appreciate your motives and intents here, you have actually done it wrong.
Sometimes, some of the gold you get in scenarios comes from acting like theiving, stealing murderhoboes. If players don't like that, they don't get some of the gold. It's sad for them. On the other hand, despite the aphorism, very frequently crime does pay, both in real life, and in PFS scenarios.
I can think of two other examples where the players would have to do something nasty and evil in order to get full gold. In one of them, it's just flat out pure-murderhobo behavior that no good party really ought to do. While, yes, I wish that the scenario weren't written that way, it is.
However, I also believe that if people are roleplaying characters, and are roleplaying them as non-murderhoboes, they're also willing to take a gold hit in exchange for not having roleplayed a rotten thief and murderer. The problem comes when they are together at a table with people who are primarily interested in the numerical rewards on the chronicle sheet, and will feel cheated if they didn't get max gold. This is always going to be a bit of a problem in PFS, alas.
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Contributor
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Sometimes, some of the gold you get in scenarios comes from acting like theiving, stealing murderhoboes.
Huh. You know, I've never assumed that the characters must actually (and necessarily) take treasure they've found in an encounter in order to have it figure into their rewards.
My thinking here is dictated by the parallel situation of consumables that might listed on a Chronicle sheet, even if those consumables were used by an opponent in the course of the scenario. For example, an enemy uses a potion of fly in a fight, leaving nothing but an empty bottle for the PCs to find if and when they defeat her. Or do you cross such off the Chronicle sheet in those circumstances?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Just because some authors see the game as "kill things and take their stuff" doesn't mean we have to carry that mentality into other scenarios as well.
Yeah, there are some scenarios where the author sets it up so you're explicitly supposed to be punished for being anything but evil. I can't do much about that beyond giving them a detailed 1-star review (and maybe avoiding everything that author writes in the future). That doesn't mean we need to impose that same mentality on other situations.
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Sometimes, some of the gold you get in scenarios comes from acting like theiving, stealing murderhoboes.Huh. You know, I've never assumed that the characters must actually (and necessarily) take treasure they've found in an encounter in order to have it figure into their rewards.
My thinking here is dictated by the parallel situation of consumables that might listed on a Chronicle sheet, even if those consumables were used by an opponent in the course of the scenario. For example, an enemy uses a potion of fly in a fight, leaving nothing but an empty bottle for the PCs to find if and when they defeat her. Or do you cross such off the Chronicle sheet in those circumstances?
That is a good point, and may give us a bit of a loophole to fly through. I don't tend to cross off the stuff that enemies use during combat; I wonder if we're supposed to? I suspect, actually, that we are. Your potion of fly is a good hypothetical example. Does anybody know if it says somewhere in the PFS Guide, or if there's an FAQ, to indicate what we ought to do in this situation?
In one of the examples I cited (in spoilers), it explicitly says that you have to do the bad thing to get the rewards. In the other, the text just says "find" rather than "take" the treasure, so I suppose you could happily give the players the gold on their chronicle sheet as written, although it seems a little weird. (You have to engage in antisocial, though not evil, behavior just to find it in the first place in that scenario as well, though.)
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I don't personally see much difference in locking the door and giving the PCs out of game knowledge that they don't really want to go in that door as they're opening it. Either way, you're bending the rules to make the scenario more enjoyable for everyone.
Just know that if they don't find the key on the NPC you arbitrarily placed it on for whatever reason, it's now arbitrarily in a filing cabinet or whatever. There's a slippery slope argument to be made, just know there's a big difference between harmlessly railroading the PCs and adding an advanced Dire Ape in hopes of making the low tier end fight more "fun".. you should definitely not do that
Full disclosure, I've totally added an impromptu lock to the door in question.. lol
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Contributor
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Another thing to consider in the case of straight-up cash is how the numbers don't really add up, lending further credence (perhaps) to the notion that such treasures are meant to be understood, I guess, notionally rather than literally.
In one of the examples you gave, rknop, a pouch contains X gold at low-tier and at high-tier it contains Y gold (and the pouch itself is a magic item).
In the case of a party with four PCs, would a larger amount of gold therefore be deducted from the final total if they PCs don't "take" it? In the case of a party with seven PCs, would a smaller amount be so deducted?
And of course, there's also the fact that whether there are four of them or seven, all of them have the option of buying that magical pouch at the end.
It's for these and other reasons I've never been too literal about the treasures awarded on a per encounter basis (unless they aren't discovered at all--and even then it makes my head hurt a little).
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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That is a good point, and may give us a bit of a loophole to fly through. I don't tend to cross off the stuff that enemies use during combat; I wonder if we're supposed to? I suspect, actually, that we are. Your potion of fly is a good hypothetical example. Does anybody know if it says somewhere in the PFS Guide, or if there's an FAQ, to indicate what we ought to do in this situation?
I don't have the Guide handy for a page reference, but players still get access to found items, even if the bad guys use them, or the PCs use them after finding them, or even if the PCs sunder them while the NPCs are wearing them. There is no penalty for any of this (unless the scenario specifies an exception, of course).
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Also, I think it's significant that encounters have lately shifted in their language from "If the PCs find X, reward them thusly" to "If the PCs fail, reduce gold thusly". I recall a discussion precipitating that change, which centered on the idea that reduced rewards should be a penalty for failure. Like, actual failure, not just behaving differently than the author planned.
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If PC's creatively come up with an alternate solution, isn't the GM supposed to provide appropriate alternate treasure?
Edit: Ahh, yes.
Sometimes during the course of a
scenario, your players might surprise
you with a creative solution to an encounter (or the
entire scenario) that you didn’t see coming and that isn’t
expressly covered in the scenario. If, for example, your
players manage to roleplay their way through a combat and
successfully accomplish the goal of that encounter without
killing the antagonist, give the PCs the same reward they
would have gained had they defeated their opponent in
combat. If that scene specifically calls for the PCs to receive
gold piece rewards based on the gear collected from the
defeated combatants, instead allow the PCs to find a
chest of gold (or something similar) that gives them the
same rewards. Additionally, if the PCs roleplayed past
an NPC who carries a specific potion or scroll that
the PCs might be granted access to on the scenario’s
Chronicle sheet, don’t cross that item off the sheet—
instead, allow the PCs to find the item elsewhere
as a reward for creatively resolving the encounter
without resorting to combat. Pathfinder Society
Organized Play never wants to give the impression
that the only way to solve a problem is to kill it—
rewarding the creative use of skills and roleplaying
not only make Society games more fun for the players,
but it also gives the GM a level of flexibility in ensuring
players receive the rewards they are due.
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While I appreciate your motives and intents here, you have actually done it wrong.Sometimes, some of the gold you get in scenarios comes from acting like theiving, stealing murderhoboes. If players don't like that, they don't get some of the gold. It's sad for them. On the other hand, despite the aphorism, very frequently crime does pay, both in real life, and in PFS scenarios.
I can think of two other examples where the players would have to do something nasty and evil in order to get full gold. In one of them, it's just flat out pure-murderhobo behavior that no good party really ought to do. While, yes, I wish that the scenario weren't written that way, it is.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
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Sometimes, some of the gold you get in scenarios comes from acting like theiving, stealing murderhoboes.Huh. You know, I've never assumed that the characters must actually (and necessarily) take treasure they've found in an encounter in order to have it figure into their rewards.
My thinking here is dictated by the parallel situation of consumables that might listed on a Chronicle sheet, even if those consumables were used by an opponent in the course of the scenario. For example, an enemy uses a potion of fly in a fight, leaving nothing but an empty bottle for the PCs to find if and when they defeat her. Or do you cross such off the Chronicle sheet in those circumstances?
That is a good point, and may give us a bit of a loophole to fly through. I don't tend to cross off the stuff that enemies use during combat; I wonder if we're supposed to? I suspect, actually, that we are. Your potion of fly is a good hypothetical example. Does anybody know if it says somewhere in the PFS Guide, or if there's an FAQ, to indicate what we ought to do in this situation?
In one of the examples I cited (in spoilers), it explicitly says that you have to do the bad thing to get the rewards. In the other, the text just says "find" rather than "take" the treasure, so I suppose you could happily give the players the gold on their chronicle sheet as written, although it seems a little weird. (You have to engage in antisocial, though not evil, behavior just to find it in the first place in that scenario as well, though.)
Generally speaking, you are not to cross out things that that are used by the enemies. I say this, because there are a few exceptions to this that the scenarios call out specifically.
The way I see it, is that when you encounter something, you now have the knowledge that it exists and have passed it on to the Society.
Agent: Did you know that you can make a potion of Fly? Here's the remnants of the potion that the Aspis agent used.
PF Wizard: Hmm. Yes, I'll check it out. Do you want any if I figure out the formula?
Agent: Sure... I'll be back in a couple of days... if you see any scratches or other wounds on me, it was because I was calling in a favor from the Paracountess.
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The thing to remember is that the Pathfinder Society in Golarion is a Neutral organization. That means it may sometimes reward its agents for acting in ways that benefit the Society but not Golarion as a whole (and may not necessarily be considered "nice").
The prohibition against evil PCs in Organized Play is a (necessary) construct used to prevent a minority of players from disrupting the experience for everyone.
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I remember when Jiggy almost convinced the Party to take actions in a scenario that would have required me to do some serious freelancing with the scenario.
None of his ideas were childish or evil, and actually made sense based on the info the characters had.
I was completely prepared to freelance and congratulate them on a good idea and reward them for the scenario. Even though they might have only had one encounter.
That being said, circumstances might have you running some replayers who find it expedient to go straight to the control room. And that I cannot reward.