|
All the talk about a nature faction makes me think of a technology faction. Maybe centered out of Alkenstar / Numeria that emphasizes technological advancement above natural preservation. Would be a good foil to the Green Faith.
A tech faction would be wonderful. I had hoped against hope that the Technic League would be allies with the Pathfinder Society, and even wrote it in as my faction when I made my savage technologist barbarian. (Later I erased it in frustration and wrote in "Butt Faction" for a while before choosing Liberty's Edge.)
That's it! "Butt Faction" can be the "I don't care" group. Leave Grand Lodge for the people who actually try to explore, report, and cooperate.
|
There are many, many, many stories of all the horrible atrocities that corporations inflicted upon their rank and file. And some still exist today after hundreds of years.Labor relations take on a slightly different tone when your employees can lob fireballs and raise the dead...
Which is why the decemvirate is masked.
Really, I dont get why people try to imprint our modern day ideologies on a fantasy world that is more loosely based on early renaissance.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sign me up, too!All the talk about a nature faction makes me think of a technology faction. Maybe centered out of Alkenstar / Numeria that emphasizes technological advancement above natural preservation. Would be a good foil to the Green Faith.Sign (at least) 4 of my characters up! This sounds twice as nice as a bunch of dirtworshippers. Damnable Andorans.
Anything for us "the idea of technological advancement being somehow at odds with environmental protection is an obsolete and lame 19th-Century Romantic trope that some of us have long-since evolved past thankyouverymuch" types?
All the talk about a nature faction makes me think of a technology faction. Maybe centered out of Alkenstar / Numeria that emphasizes technological advancement above natural preservation. Would be a good foil to the Green Faith.A tech faction would be wonderful. I had hoped against hope that the Technic League would be allies with the Pathfinder Society, and even wrote it in as my faction when I made my savage technologist barbarian. (Later I erased it in frustration and wrote in "Butt Faction" for a while before choosing Liberty's Edge.)
That's it! "Butt Faction" can be the "I don't care" group. Leave Grand Lodge for the people who actually try to explore, report, and cooperate.
Kenny Blankenship's "Beer, Chicks, and Painful Elimination" Faction? Seems pretty adventurer-friendly....
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are many, many, many stories of all the horrible atrocities that corporations inflicted upon their rank and file. And some still exist today after hundreds of years.Labor relations take on a slightly different tone when your employees can lob fireballs and raise the dead...Which is why the decemvirate is masked.
Really, I dont get why people try to imprint our modern day ideologies on a fantasy world that is more loosely based on early renaissance.
Ideology ain't got nothing to do with it (at least not necessarily). When I play a fantasy roleplaying game, I want to play a damn hero. I think that's acceptably in bounds and to be expected. The Pathfinder Society, as written, is *not* a heroic organization. It's an evil association of power seekers. Which is a disappointment and a weird decision to have as the centerpiece and the default option of an organized play campaign. If the society as written is neutral "leaning" evil, the thought is that it would be better to have it neutral leaning good.
|
|
No, because IF there's a happy technology happy trees period in history we haven't quite gotten to it yet.
Elves kind of embody it though in fantasy, don't they (with the aid of Clarke's Law, at least)?
Yeah, thats colson "jazz" maldris' schtick. Welcome to andor.. Liberty's Edge.
No, Liberty's Edge is the Nat Turner/Simon Bolivar set with a strong Napoleonic aggressive edge.
|
Someone like Torch isn't the only way to do that, but he does a job the Ten need to get done one way or another.To be precisely accurate, Torch fooled everyone into thinking THAT was the job he was doing, when he was simply using that as a cover to set up the Society for his great revenge run on the Decemvirate and the Society at large.
Yet another reason to think that Torch is not very good as an information broker, really.
Given that the Decemvirate are always masked, and disguised in other ways, and that Ven Lorovox was not the one who dealt with them, it is ... unlikely ... that GMT has any idea which, if any, member of the Decemvirate he wants revenge on. And taking it out on the other members of the Society is ... ill, just ill.
He probably needs a heal so that his mental faculties get returned to something approaching sanity...
|
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
A more robust system for reporting events. I had to spend about an hour repairing events last night, and this must be even more painful for 4-5 star GMs who have lost tables with 100+ sessions run to find what's missing.
Okay, I feel like a moron now.
Lost tables? What's this all about?
|
|
A more robust system for reporting events. I had to spend about an hour repairing events last night, and this must be even more painful for 4-5 star GMs who have lost tables with 100+ sessions run to find what's missing. Okay, I feel like a moron now.
Lost tables? What's this all about?
I assume he's talking about This Thread
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wouldn't mind a more user-friendly reporting system, that's for sure.
Nice features would be:
- the ability to delegate adding scenarios to events. Right now the event owner can delegate reporting, but not adding scenarios. That's not convenient for things like a monthly game in each of 4 different stores.
- some way to extract records of who's played what scenarios, so that we can write our own mustering/matchingmaking programs without having to maintain our own databases. (Keeping both the paizo.com and your own database up to date is a pain.)
|
I assume he's talking about This ThreadA more robust system for reporting events. I had to spend about an hour repairing events last night, and this must be even more painful for 4-5 star GMs who have lost tables with 100+ sessions run to find what's missing. Okay, I feel like a moron now.
Lost tables? What's this all about?
I wish that was the only occurrence.
|
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
|
- some way to extract records of who's played what scenarios, so that we can write our own mustering/matchingmaking programs without having to maintain our own databases. (Keeping both the paizo.com and your own database up to date is a pain.)
AFAIK Privacy laws require people to Opt In before any play history could be shared with the outside world.
|
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
- some way to extract records of who's played what scenarios, so that we can write our own mustering/matchingmaking programs without having to maintain our own databases. (Keeping both the paizo.com and your own database up to date is a pain.)AFAIK Privacy laws require people to Opt In before any play history could be shared with the outside world.
Well, then an opt-in form could be made.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone like Torch isn't the only way to do that, but he does a job the Ten need to get done one way or another.To be precisely accurate, Torch fooled everyone into thinking THAT was the job he was doing, when he was simply using that as a cover to set up the Society for his great revenge run on the Decemvirate and the Society at large.Yet another reason to think that Torch is not very good as an information broker, really.
** spoiler omitted **
I think people are looking at this a bit oddly. Firstly, my understanding is that Torch wants (his very well deserved) revenge on all of the Decimverate. They are directly responsible for getting his close friends and lover killed, and himself cursed permanently.
I have a strong feeling that he is actually the Emerald Sage, and that is the reason his curse can not be removed through player powers.
But as to why the Decimverate would allow Torch to do his thing, the answer is pretty simple. Torch didn't give them the choice. And this was before he found out there secrets and identities. He ad enough dirt and enough pull that he gave the Ten terms they really had no option but to accept, but eventually (and in an extremely contrived way) found a way around it, leading Torch to finally give the entire society the finger and backed up his threat by discovering their true identities and other very dangerous secrets.
The underlying problem here is that it still doesn't really explain in any plausible way why the rest of the Shadow Lodge would just dissolve and go away, (extremely contrived) rather than look at new leadership and continue on their mission. Particularly amongst many of the higher level player base.
All in all, the entire deal with the heel-toe swap of Torch and the Shadow Lodge going away was just very poorly handled. It's no wonder we are still talking about it this long afterwards.
Something else that seemed to morph over time is the entire idea of the PFS. Originally, it was a rather small group of likeminded players meant to be a sort of easy-in to gaming. It was pretty notably not very popular, not very large, and didn't hold a great deal of power or influence.
Somehow, it's more recently become a sort of private army that far surpasses all other nations, (possibly combined) and has the power and pull to give most other countries the finger whenever they like. Or having 20,000 magic items and artifacts.
It doesn't make much sense. What nation would allow this sort of thing to happen? For an unknown, unloyal group to amass that much power, and it be common knowledge. It also just doesn't make sense for such a large group to exist for the purposes that they do. The faith of Iomedae having an issue with a small group for stealing a holy artifact is one thing. But if they are a major player, it's going to bump them up on the crusade list, and this would have been years before the breaking of the Wardstones of Season 5. Similarly, they raid tombs consistently, they hoard knowledge, and they as a group have no respect for life and death or the past, so there is no way that Pharasma would not be gunning for them if they were anything more than a small group. And the sheer amount of times they as an organization have broken the laws and subverted/manipulated authority or gone out of their way to weaken or imperil nations for their own gain would certainly also put them on Abadar's radar as well.
The PFS works as a small, uninfluential, minor organization, but it doesn't as a massive, powerful, world-spanning one.
|
|
A nature based faction sounds good.
Summoners (in particular, but other classes) being included as NPCs. Maybe an Eidolon smarter than all the characters who dumped Intelligence so we can make fun of them.
Torch makes a great anti hero. What DM Beckett said about the Shadow Lodge. Perhaps a cool "restoration" scenario.
|
|
I think that the in-campaign Pathfinder Society as it has become established is too large and too powerful. you're exaggerating a little when you mention 20,000 magic items in the basement, but that's something that makes the organization enormously powerful.
As a participant in the campaign, I think the storylines would be better served if the Society were weakened substantially. (A team of Aspis Consortium operatives breaks into the vaults under the Grand Lodge and lets loose a sphere of annihilation; the Society is blamed for the disaster and loses a great deal of its luster amid the rulers of Absalom. Meanwhile, a member of the Decemvirate is revealed to be a murderous Ustalav noble who runs a demonic cult on the side; that'll end the cosy relationship the Society has with Mendev.)
It might force the Ten to look for allies or strike deals they can just barely live with.It would make for some fun stories.
This sounds so amazing! This probably one of the best ideas I've ever heard about PFS, and I seriously hope that this is considered for future.
|
|
Some things I'd like to see for PFS:
1.) A return of the Assimar and Tieflings as playable options, but ONLY the base types.
2.) A return to more of the Season 0 and 1 style of play, where in many cases, it really felt that the scenarios where very important. Saving Absalom from a rising undead army. Or finding the secrets behind an odd, unique curse. Exploring new places, and learning more about the world at the same time. Something I kind of miss is the odd, not quite by the rules encounters and difficulties of the old days.
3.) More Ustalav.
4.) More undead. I know that PFS went away for a while due to how common they where early, but I think it's time to take a step back.
5.) A chronicle that allows a player to use a Boon between to characters (as a sort of one time thing) would be pretty cool. For instance, if I have one character that gets a cool item or award, being able to rp that they gave or sold it to one of their friends (another of my characters) who might be able to use it better. Things like the Axe Beak companion or the Faery Dragon familiar come to mind.
6.) More expeditions into places like the Worldwound itself or even different Planes and planets. Not too many, but one or two per season for different planes and planets, but a handful for things like the Worldwound, especially in the past season which often seemed like it just happened to be coincidental.
7.) Holiday Boons and also just random universal Boons tied to real world events and holidays rather than setting ones.
8.) In game titles and trophy rewards.
9.) More scenarios like The Night Marches of Kalkamedes (in my opinion, the all around best scenario to date), Weapon in the Rifts, (nice to reward divine and good characters sometimes and I enjoyed the riddles and puzzles), and The Gods Market Gamble, (an investigation scenario done right that doesn't invalidate any sorts of builds or classes, is challenging, and doesn't whitewash the rules to make sure everyone can play and enjoy it). In my opinion, these three scenarios are really what all scenario writers should look at to try to emulate. Now, that being said, I do understand that different people like different things. Some of other people's top 5 scenarios are the ones I hate the most, (The Disappeared, Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment, and The Blakros Matrimony, for example), so different strokes for different folks.
10.) A few more 2 or 3 parters, but ones that are not very tied into a plot, and do switch playstyles a bit. Not tied to any faction, so the aim is to make a memorable story arch that anyone can get into, but doesn't advance the season arch, or tie into any one or more faction, including the Grand Lodge.
11.) I'd personally love if the Gen Con and Season specials where not related to the actual season theme, but rather just something cool and special, (the idea of play AC for instance sounds perfect). It's annoying not being able to play the conclusion of each years season, and knowing that I'm not going to play through the ending just makes me uninterested in the season's theme at all. It also leaves players not understanding a lot of the changes or revelations involved. (What is the Sky Key and why do I care about it? Why are we not in Mendev any more, and why would anyone care about what the PFS wants when there is still a world shattering event in progress. Okay, so I just discovered the last, lost Sky Citadel and have unique knowledge about opening and exploring it,. . . and when is that actually going to take place? ? ?) <I know most of these answers, but it's very annoying not being able to actually play/run through them. Kind of like waiting a few year to see the last two episodes of a show goes>
12.) More encounters with odd, uncommon creatures and peoples. I don't mean combat encounters, but rather things like negotiating with centaurs, or even a dragon, was pretty awesome. On the other hand, some combat encounters with iconic baddies where amazing. Killing a Rakshasa and a true dragon where just awesome. Sort of like OOC trophies/achievements. Fighting a lich or a vampire would be up there, too. Or hanging out with the Grippli, or some Hound/Lantern Archons.
13.) A true return to the Blakros Museum, (Mists, Penumbral, Voice, and Echoes, but NOT Silver Mount Collection).
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As said before, though, the Decemvirate can go jump in a lake.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like or care for the Decemvirate as a group or concept?
I personally could do without them. The whole hidden, unknowable secret inner circle thing is done and overdone again, and kind of smacks of someone's personal DM NPC.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As said before, though, the Decemvirate can go jump in a lake.Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like or care for the Decemvirate as a group or concept?
I like them as a story element. They drive a lot of plot points with their dickishness.
But maybe I just like masks.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As said before, though, the Decemvirate can go jump in a lake.Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like or care for the Decemvirate as a group or concept?
I personally could do without them. The whole hidden, unknowable secret inner circle thing is done and overdone again, and kind of smacks of someone's personal DM NPC.
Well, perhaps a season could be devoted to unmasking them,and rebuilding the Society.
|
|
I like them as a story element. They drive a lot of plot points with their sickishness.As said before, though, the Decemvirate can go jump in a lake.Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like or care for the Decemvirate as a group or concept?
Their whatishness? :P
But isn't that what the Venture-Captains are for? :)
But maybe I just like masks.
No wrong answer, I was just curious.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, perhaps a season could be devoted to unmasking them,and rebuilding the Society.As said before, though, the Decemvirate can go jump in a lake.Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like or care for the Decemvirate as a group or concept?
I personally could do without them. The whole hidden, unknowable secret inner circle thing is done and overdone again, and kind of smacks of someone's personal DM NPC.
This would be amazing. I retract all of my requests and replace them with this.
|
|
I really don't like technology in OUR fantasy game. It really ruins the fun and mood for me. I could really care less about Barrier Peaks or Comet Nights. It's kind of why I avoided playing those, even way before PF was a thing. Some systems and settings can do it well, (Star Wars, D20 Modern, Shadowrun), but I don't think D&D/PF do. I'm not terribly big on rampant murder, grave robbing, and other things common in PFS, even if others like them in our game. That's fine, everyone's preferences and opinions.
How are you more mature because you happen to like whatever specifically you where referring to?
|
|
There are many, many, many stories of all the horrible atrocities that corporations inflicted upon their rank and file. And some still exist today after hundreds of years.
So it is absolutely probable that a corporation such as the Pathfinder Society and the Decemvirate could continue to be successful without any kind of external or internal oversight.
This is actually more common, especially the further back in time you go, than you are making it out to be.
a.) How many of those atrocious companies were successful for long.
b.) More importantly, what kind of workers were they oppressing?
Almost universally it was unskilled labor that was cheaper than raw materials at the time. In many cases, laborers who were legally tied to the land and not allowed to leave.
That's not what PFS field agents are. They're much more valuable: Exceptional people to begin with, the Society spends three friggin years training them before they go out on missions, dedicating three of their most senior Venture Captains to training and other agents to assist in that training.
Pathfinder agents are not cheap to replace, and even in the absence of OSHA, firms treat expensive, difficult to replace resources much better than cheap, easily replaced resources. Even if the dark ages carpenter beat his apprentices, he still treated his tools very well because those were expensive but apprentices were cheap. PFS field agents are expensive capital. Oliver Williamson's The Economic Institutions of Capitalism has a chapter on labor, unions, and contracting that is applicable here.
Why would the Decemvirate put up with a labor union? Because agents are expensive and they can't micromanage their VCs to ensure those agents aren't wasted. It's called the Principal-Agent problem: How does the Decemvirate ensure that VCs and agents are acting in the way they want them to, instead of following...
Let me ask you this: how do we know this isn't happening behind the scenes?
Just because we as players dont/haven't seen it yet, doesn't mean it isn't happening. We dont need a public figure or union for this to be happening. As a matter of fact, there are many subtle hints and clues over the last seven years that says it is happening. There are also some very overt clues, but that would be a huge spoiler should I say what and where.
And what of Torch's agenda? He obviously wanted nothing more to do with the decemvirate.
The plots aren't ignoring human history. We just dont have all the info yet.
|
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
How are you more mature because you happen to like whatever specifically you where referring to?
The issue is not about what an individual does and doesn't like, it's about how they express that like or dislike. Stating a personal dislike is fine but when it becomes incessant or demanding, as has been the case with some issues, then it is no longer a mature attempt at a solution.
Everyone's voice should count equally. Some people want their voice to count more by repeating it loudly and ad nauseum.
|
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
|
OK, I'll bite. How do you get a summoner as an animal companion?Rant thread? Excellent!
...I don't want to see summoners or large cats as animal companions.
Just a syntax error. Fixed: "I don't want to see summoners. I don't want to see large cats as animal companions."
|
|
How are you more mature because you happen to like whatever specifically you where referring to?The issue is not about what an individual does and doesn't like, it's about how they express that like or dislike. Stating a personal dislike is fine but when it becomes incessant or demanding, as has been the case with some issues, then it is no longer a mature attempt at a solution.
Everyone's voice should count equally. Some people want their voice to count more by repeating it loudly and ad nauseum.
Fair enough.
On the other hand, I tried your suggestion, saying "our" rather than "my", and I'm really not sure the distinction matters. I typed it first, and went ahead and submitted it so to come back a bit later to reread.
In my opinion, I think I'd actually rather see "my", as it kind of implies more ownership and participation. Maybe not ownership as much as investment.