I’ve seen over the past few weeks, a lot of threads cropping up on the forums about the first season of organised play, about things people like or don’t like. Whether it’s acceptable or not to tweak the order in which scenarios are played/rewards are gained? How best to handle missed scenarios and players who have played more/fewer scenarios than others? On top of this, we’ve seen a lot of discussion around the Class Decks, and the cards in them.
I feel like the missing element from all this is a discussion of what Organised Play is actually for. There’s potential that people are making a lot of different assumptions, not all of which are necessarily true, and that this may be informing the rest of the debate.
My assumption would be that at its most basic level, Organised Play is designed to get more people playing Pathfinder ACG – the Class Decks are designed to be a cheap entry-point to the game, without having to by the full AP – assuming someone else has the stuff to run the game.
As a bonus for existing players, OP offers access to more content at a cheaper rate – we’ve not managed to get formal OP going round here, but I buy the PDFs of the scenarios – it’s not as different as a whole extra adventure, but it’s also a hell of a lot cheaper.
Aside from that, do people think there are other aims in OP? – I noticed that the last adventure had a reward for the RPG, which was of no interest to me whatsoever. Is this because they’re trying to use the ACG as a gateway drug for the RPG?
For people more familiar with Pathfinder Society stuff within the RPG – do they say explicitly why it exists- is it just to coordinate / make it easier for people to find a game? is it a chance to try out material that wouldn’t fit into printed products?
I feel like a broader understanding of these issues will help the discussions about whether rewards need to be different / it needs to be easier for people to catch up / etc.
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Actually, you've hit almost all the points, MightyJim!
1) Paizo has this card game that is based on the themes and Adventure Paths in the RPG. It's popular.
2) The RPG has organized play and Paizo wants to incorporate the card game into it. (To see if it works ... it is the test season.)
3) The idea of class decks is a cheaper method of getting new players to try the game and potentially purchase the base set (and adventure decks).
4) Added bonus is that the OP scenarios/adventures are additional material to be played with the base set. And relatively inexpensive. So for those that gobble up the content, more stuff!
5) Integration of the PFS RPG and ACG allows for cross-content rewards. You can gain rewards in ACG to apply to RPG and visa-versa.
6) Providing the resources to record and post events in the same place as the RPG events allows for RPG players to possibly make the jump over to the ACG. And by providing a common OP society, ACG players get introduced to the RPG and where the themes for the sets comes from.
So, I know this thread sank pretty quickly after I initially posted, but I'm dragging it up again, because I feel the issue is still around.
Lots of discussions are still going on- particularly around the issue of the Role Card not coming until the end of adventure 4. Players posting about what they or others "need" or "don't need" to do.
I think the disagreement over all of this stems from a fundamental disconnect over what exactly Organised Play is all about - whether at the end of the day, Paizo want to get more people playing and having fun, regardless of how they chose to do that, or whether there's some less obvious aim in play, which necessitates a stricter following of the rules as they've been set out.
I'd be really interested to here what the designers think on this subject (hopefully Tanis is less dead than when i first posted and may see this and respond?)
*waves* I live again.
Theryon, as usual, has done a good job enumerating the main points. Adventure Card Guild has two main goals, namely giving more people a chance to play the game in more ways and incentivizing in-store play (stores receive scenarios for free and before they're publicly available).
As far as role cards go, there were reasons for the change in role card reward time, but given the overwhelming player feedback I've switched the rewards for adventures 3 and 4.
Since Pathfinder Society RPG and ACG live in the same tent, we're providing crossover rewards in some cases to see how people like it. The RPG module Plunder and Peril, when run as a Society RPG scenario, gives players Adventure Card Guild rewards. We're still very much exploring the possibilities on all fronts.
Does that help, MightyJim?