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This is a question for organizes that live in parts of the country where there are a good number of Cons for your players to attend. Have you found any tricks or strategies for maintaining a healthy bi-weekly group with any sense of linear narrative? Or have you just given up and resigned yourself to picking up the random scraps the Cons leave behind?
Let me explain my perspective. I got my start in PFS in the Rocky Mountain Lodge where there was a real emphasis on the regular group and only a couple Cons a year, and the events at those Cons were coordinated with what was being scheduled in the regular groups. I LOVED playing PFS in a system like that, progressing through the seasons with my friends in a mostly linear manner. Now I live in central Illinois, have taken the part of the local coordinator, and my players have access to at least half-a-dozen Cons within easy driving distance, including Gen Con itself. Many of my regular players end up playing completely random things at different Cons. They are pretty good about entering what they have played on a spreadsheet so that I have some information to plan from, but it is a significant amount of work to figure out the combinations of tables to offer to give as many people as possible something to play and maintain any level of continuity. And is rapidly approaching impossible, to my despair.
I’ve tried encouraging my players to always play the oldest scenario available to them in any slot, but I’m not sure of the success of that. Obviously, this problem is reduced the more tables I can offer simultaneous on a game day, but we are hovering around just 2 or 3 tables at a time.
I have taken surveys about interest in playing CORE, but only a few of the old-timers who have played almost everything are excited about it. And based on what I read here, I am leery of trying to offer it simultaneously with NORM games.
I’m sure many will not understand my perspective at all. But I am writing this in the hope that someone has something helpful to say.
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Hi Eric,
When you say "bi-weekly", is this twice a week or every two weeks?
My first thought if you're looking to run something with campaign continuity that conventions cannot offer, would be to look at running a sanctioned adventure path or deluxe module in campaign mode.
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I'm not an organizer, but -- this sounds pretty similar to the situation in Pittsburgh. There is also the issue that people have joined at all different times over the last few years, so their playing histories are all different.
We've more or less accepted that a long-term narrative isn't really going to happen. That being said, we still do get some continuity. There's the "emergent narrative" of some characters seeing each other several times and getting to know each other. Also, the local organizer (Andrew Hoskins) will make a point of putting together mini-arcs so we can get shorter narratives that still cover more than one scenario -- things like the scenarios that come in parts. Also, at a recent local Con, he put together the five-scenario Lissala arc from season 4.
We have one main gameday a month where there are three scenario slots (with typically two scenarios in each slot). We typically also have another one-slot gameday each month, with two scenarios (or sometimes two modules) running. Those are chosen more on the request of GMs and players than on any master plan. (We're pretty GM-rich here>)
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By bi-weekly I meant roughly twice a month.
I hadn’t considered just leaving it all up to GM request. Although, considering I have to GM more than 50% of the time, that wouldn’t really change much. I have certainly tried to offer retro-mini-arcs, like some of the season 3 Tapestry adventures.
The question of who should be running modules is certainly an interesting side conversation. My local game store will only allow me a 5 hour time block, so I am not able to offer them at our regular games. Accordingly, I wish the smaller cons around us would offer modules, and compete with me less. But the Con organizers say there is always someone who doesn’t understand that they cannot sign up for just half a module and ends up ruining the experience, thus the Cons have stopped offering them.
Alex's suggesting is interesting. I think most of my players think the best place to do the multi-parters is at Cons. I have tried to let everyone know that I would be runnning multiple tables of a particular 3-parter and more than half of them played it at a Con anyway. But maybe I will try again.
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Locally, the Core campaign really helped with this since it's difficult to find scenarios that everyone can play in the regular campaign. A group of us started the season 4 "campaign path" that can be found floating around, and played just about every week for the better part of this past year. We're just about to start Eyes of the Ten with this core group.
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So if you're running 2 tables minimum fortnightly, you could aim to run something like.
Table 1: One of the latest PFS scenarios in the current season.
Table 2: CORE campaign using one of the campaign paths listed in this thread.
Table 3: Copy of table 1 or 2 as required.
In this example you're offering new content to those that want it, continuity for those that want it and your veterans get a chance to replay old adventures.
There shouldn't be any issue with core games so long as players are aware and that table is committed in advance to being a core game. Most of the problems I'm aware of have come from lack of awareness or a table being changed from core to a normal table at the last minute to accommodate other players.
If there is local interest in modules, it is worth noting that those can be run over multiple sessions if needed.
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Hm, so is that how the CORE/NORM relationship is evolving, with NORM being Con play and CORE being local play? When CORE was announced I was really hoping it would be the other way around, with the binge players getting their fill of CORE at the Cons, but playing the "real" game at home. But, I think you may be right Zak, all I see are the Cons in race to consume all the NORM scenarios.
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I run our Core campaign on Thursdays in my area. The location holds both a PFS Core and a PFS game simultaneously. We've been doing this long enough that a couple of the PCs who have been to all the sessions are now level 5, and awaiting a few more stragglers to continue the Blakros arc that I'm doing. I'm currently running off-arc games to catch some folks up, but should have some higher level Core games in a few months. We've not really had any issues running Core, with several folks playing it that aren't at the level of having nothing left in normal PFS. I also coordinate another store in the area that has little to no interest in Core games on Wednesday.
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I suppose another strategy is to stop being the nice guy and just race the Cons to the new material as soon as it comes out. This would probably be a pretty miserable experience for me, as I would take every spoiler and never benefit from another GM’s prep, but at least my players would finally get to experience a linear progression as a group playing the “real” game.
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Jack, are you personally running simultaneous NORM and CORE games at your games days? I would love to hear from anyone's first-hand experience as to how well that works.
We run three weekly venues (3-4 tables, 1-2 tables and 1-2 tables) in our immediate area with Core and Regular interspersed. We have a group of say 10 or so players who are really into Core, so it's fairly easy to Keep track of what they've played. It is also predominantly at one location.
What feedback were you looking for?
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Thanks, Dave. Some of the concerns I've a least seen on the message boards have been:
1. Players would get pressured to switch campaigns to make legal tables.
2. People would constantly be signing up for the wrong tables.
3. It becomes even more confusing for new players with two campaigns running.
4. It would make your lodge even more cliquish.
Perhaps some of these have proven to be myths, if so it would be good to have them dispelled.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I suppose another strategy is to stop being the nice guy and just race the Cons to the new material as soon as it comes out. This would probably be a pretty miserable experience for me, as I would take every spoiler and never benefit from another GM’s prep, but at least my players would finally get to experience a linear progression as a group playing the “real” game.
You seem to be really disillusioned with the game at the moment. If you run 50% of the games, you sure you're not suffering from a game burnout? Its hard when other GMs dont step up but if you dont enjoy what you do, no one is benefitting in the long run.
Also, you seem to be really fixed on the idea that linear progression is the only way to play.
Doing PFS in a linear progression is really hard. If you are lucky like you were and you start out with a steady group, back when there was less choice, its a lot easier. You progress trough the seasons, because that's what is there.
But due to the nature of PFS, this is incredably hard. Players drift in and out. You get new players. Old players take a break.
Hyper focussing on linear play, because that is how you learned to play, is going to be incredably hard.
People have either played things already. Or want to sit with a friend on a particular scenario. Or GMs dont want to run certain things (season 0 can be a bit scary with the 3.5 conversion for example).
I understand that you are looking for advice on how to make the game more enjoyable for you, and you certainly have more then a right to.
And I may be reading things in your words (there is no way to gather a real tone from just text), but blaming the CONs it just comes of as defeatist. You tried. You're tired and it doesnt work.
But arent you making it more hard on yourself trying to focus on this one type of play?
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If you have a relatively consistent group of players, is there a reason why you can't split the module into two game days at the store? I've had to split a module run into three sessions before due to timing issues.
The other thing I will mention is that most of the conventions tend to focus on newer scenarios, as those are the ones available to be played by the most players. So run Season 0-3 stuff at the store. There are a lot of great scenarios available there.
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Thanks, Waron. You are not far off from the truth. This conversation is probably the death throes of the dream I had to make the PFS experience in central Illinois different than how I found it a couple years ago. That’s why the third sentence of the first post was about resigning myself to that reality. That said, I probably used the term “linear” more than I should have above, when what I really meant was providing an engaging narrative with a minimum of anachronisms. I want to provide something engaging so that new players will want to stick around. But yes, I’m definitely feeling burnt out and defeated on the scheduling aspect of my position. Some of the suggestions above may prove useful, though.
CigarPete, I will have to give more consideration to breaking up modules. Are there rule for what happens if someone doesn’t show for the second half?
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Thanks, Waron. You are not far off from the truth. This conversation is probably the death throes of the dream I had to make the PFS experience in central Illinois different than how I found it a couple years ago. That’s why the third sentence of the first post was about resigning myself to that reality. That said, I probably used the term “linear” more than I should have above, when what I really meant was providing an engaging narrative with a minimum of anachronisms. I want to provide something engaging so that new players will want to stick around. But yes, I’m definitely feeling burnt out and defeated on the scheduling aspect of my position. Some of the suggestions above may prove useful, though.
CigarPete, I will have to give more consideration to breaking up modules. Are there rule for what happens if someone doesn’t show for the second half?
Essentially, they receive a partial chronicle that notes what they completed. Typically, this is divided into thirds, since each sheet grants 3 XP for modules.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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One thing to try is to take a plotline from one of the earlier seasons and run that; you get less interference from The. New. Thing. at Cons that way.
I think the way we've got it going in our venues (plural!) is a happy medium; when a new scenario comes out that hearkens back to some old one (School of Spirits/Black Waters; True Dragons/Sewer Dragons) people will pipe up and arrangements will be made to run the old scenario so that everyone has a chance to get it under their belt.
And we have mild continuity, in that new scenarios filter through, spread across multiple venues. So it's doable to get the season story, but it'll be in changing groups and in different venues, rather than one group progressing cohesively.
This is achievable and we're happy with it. Warhorn helps a lot in making scheduling more transparent.
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Essentially, they receive a partial chronicle that notes what they completed. Typically, this is divided into thirds, since each sheet grants 3 XP for modules.Thanks, Waron. You are not far off from the truth. This conversation is probably the death throes of the dream I had to make the PFS experience in central Illinois different than how I found it a couple years ago. That’s why the third sentence of the first post was about resigning myself to that reality. That said, I probably used the term “linear” more than I should have above, when what I really meant was providing an engaging narrative with a minimum of anachronisms. I want to provide something engaging so that new players will want to stick around. But yes, I’m definitely feeling burnt out and defeated on the scheduling aspect of my position. Some of the suggestions above may prove useful, though.
CigarPete, I will have to give more consideration to breaking up modules. Are there rule for what happens if someone doesn’t show for the second half?
Complete information is in the Guide, on page 31.
If a character dies and is brought back to life, the GM must determine the rewards for that character. The minimum possible reward is 0 gp, 1 XP and 1 PP on the medium advancement track or 0 gp 1/2 XP, and 1/2 Prestige Point on the slow advancement track. If a character participates in more than 2/3 of the module, she should receive the full rewards. GMs and active players are encouraged to hasten the return of any characters waiting to be raised from the dead.
Players who do not complete each game session earn 1/3 fewer gold pieces, 1 less XP and 1 less Prestige Point for each session missed. This also applies to players who join later sessions; they receive 1/3 fewer gold pieces, 1 fewer XP and Prestige Point for each session missed. In both cases, players earn a minimum of 1/3 gold pieces, 1 XP and 1 Prestige Point. If a character earns more XP than she needs to reach her next level, she may not choose to switch advancement tracks at the new level earned.
That last line should probably read "If a character earns more XP than she needs to reach her next level, she may not choose to switch advancement tracks at the new level earned on this chronicle." No switching back-and-forth on a single chronicle, in other words, but the new normal "Choose for each game." otherwise.
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Thanks, Dave. Some of the concerns I've a least seen on the message boards have been:
1. Players would get pressured to switch campaigns to make legal tables.
2. People would constantly be signing up for the wrong tables.
3. It becomes even more confusing for new players with two campaigns running.
4. It would make your lodge even more cliquish.Perhaps some of these have proven to be myths, if so it would be good to have them dispelled.
1. Most of our players have at least 1 Core character, as the expectation we place on all our players is to ensure tables go off. With lots of weekly games, taking one for the team happens and is expected of all players at some point in time.
2. Warhorn does a great job for keeping things straight. Sign ups are done well in advance. As in i need to get December schedule up ASAP to allow time for signing up.3.yes. though properly explained is not a problem for most people.
4. Kinda but it's manageable.
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What do the players want? I play PFS for the ability to play with different people, take a character I like anywhere I go, and the flexibility to miss games without missing plot. For linear play, I either look to cons or home games.
That is a good point, Mike. I’m very curious about your comment that for linear play you look to cons. So to your perspective, in our circumstances, bursts of PFS campaign continuity, like 3-parters, are best experienced at cons?
I am very open to any ideas you may have. Feel free to email me any criticism or comments that might be personal, or too specific to our group for general interest.
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Eric, while I am not Mike, I think I understand where he is coming from on the linear at cons comment.
Yes, multi-part series are best experienced in a situation where you can go through them in order, and in a fairly small time period, especially if you can do it with mostly the same group of players.
That makes it feel more like a longer adventure, you remember the relevant bits form the earlier chapters better, and it feels more cohesive.
Just be careful. I did this once, or tried to, for the Heresy of Man series, but the third part had not been released before the con, and it took a long time, locally, before I was able to get that third scenario done.
For regular Game Day type stuff, you get a lot more "random player" feeling, even in small groups, so going through parts of a series with different players and PCs can make it more disjointed, even disregarding possible breaks in scheduling all the parts.
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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We normally game in the evenings at my location, which is exactly what we need for the region.
But I do like to scedule multi-parters in the weekend. I have the luxury of a large home very well reachable by both car and public transport, so I just offer my home for that. Altough we could play at the store if I ask nicely I think.
Anyway, a full saturday to play Rats of Round Mountain? Works like a charm :)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Illinois—Champaign-Urbana
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Eric, I usually enjoy playing/GMing on Sundays at our FLGS, but I know I can't always make it. If I can play it's often a one-shot with no guarantee that I'll be there next time. At a con I usually commit to play several sessions over the course of a weekend, often with a pre-selected group of players, so playing a multi-part series or a module is better there. Our FLGS game days just can't match that setup. I do choose older, higher-tier, or multi-part play at cons when I have an option, but the many small cons in our region tend to schedule all the newest scenarios, so often that's my only choice.
In a previous OP campaign I was lucky to enjoy the kind of local group play that you're trying for now, and it was a great experience. That campaign had regional play, so many of the cons I attended did not offer the same scenarios that our local game days did, and it was easier to get play continuity in both venues. PFSOP is different, and in central Illinois we're lucky to have local cons in addition to local game days. For FLGS play with continuity you may want to identify the group who plays most regularly at the FLGS and determine what they want to play, and then schedule accordingly, even if that leaves some of the rest of us out sometimes.
And, thanks for organizing games. Organizers never hear that too often IMO :-)
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That is a good point, Mike. I’m very curious about your comment that for linear play you look to cons. So to your perspective, in our circumstances, bursts of PFS campaign continuity, like 3-parters, are best experienced at cons?
That's my preference. Continuity is the greatest strength of a home campaign, and organized play's greatest strength is being able to play a modular story in a single sitting with metaplot tying things together.
I am very open to any ideas you may have. Feel free to email me any criticism or comments that might be personal, or too specific to our group for general interest.
Nah, nothing too big. My only real beef is that there are more people quite capable of GMing who just don't do it. That's not on you, that's on them. :)
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Eric, scheduling can be tough. Seriously, it's not just you.
My plan: Usually I always schedule the two newest scenarios. Now that they're dropping at the end of the month, they go on the following month's schedule. For a set-up like you have (2 big game days each month), I would make the schedule look something like this:
Game Day 1:
Slot 1:
New Scenario 1
Meta-thread Scenario A
Slot 2:
New Scenario 2
Meta-thread Scenario B
Game Day 2:
Slot 1:
New Scenario 2
Meta-thread Scenario C
Slot 2:
New Scenario 1
Meta-thread Scenario D (CORE)
The Meta-threads are there for following different on-going story-lines, but doesn't need to be multi-parters. Examples might be: Blackros, Shadow-Lodge, Aspis, GM Torch, fey-related, etc.
This lets veterans pick up ones they missed while also inter-mixing with the new stuff. For Core, you could dedicate one slot to always being CORE so that vets can re-play those older scenarios.
With this set-up, if I were a vet who had played absolutely everything, each month, I would plan on:
Day 1:
New Scenario 1
Meta-thread B
Day 2:
New Scenario 2
Meta-thread D (CORE)
If I'd already played Meta-thread B, I'd GM it. Super-veterans can make some of the best GMs, especially with a little practice.
Hope this helps.