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Im kind of surprised your a four star GM and you haven't come across that stuff yet. Admittedly, a lot of the wonky stuff you'll never see on the player side (ie. Modules like Godsmouth) but the weirdest thing I've ever come across is the fact that as a Dark Archive member you can complete an objective by recovering Zarta's BDSM toy. When I ran that scenario I was so happy that it didn't come up because well there was a young kid at the table.Pathfinder Academy is surely a good idea, but to an european, some things like safecleaning the scenarios sounds very american^^
Now i don´t know every scenario, but i think Paizo keeps most things between the lines and safe anyway, so it seems more as an GM thing to me. I saw some of the "Deathpool" outcries though and it´s probably better to be on the safe side.
What is trying to be done with the Pathfinder Society Academy and its guidelines to the scenarios is expand on what will require the GM to do less work couching adult content like Zarta's Toys. We are keeping everything spoiler free with warnings like movie ratings to explain content in a scenario.
There are somethings parents might not want a GM at a convention to expose their child too. Like Mr. Falk said it is "better to be on the safe side." We would rather be on the safe side then have someone complain a GM was talking about Zarta's Toys in front of their child.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Im kind of surprised your a four star GM and you haven't come across that stuff yet. Admittedly, a lot of the wonky stuff you'll never see on the player side (ie. Modules like Godsmouth) but the weirdest thing I've ever come across is the fact that as a Dark Archive member you can complete an objective by recovering Zarta's BDSM toy. When I ran that scenario I was so happy that it didn't come up because well there was a young kid at the table.Pathfinder Academy is surely a good idea, but to an european, some things like safecleaning the scenarios sounds very american^^
Now i don´t know every scenario, but i think Paizo keeps most things between the lines and safe anyway, so it seems more as an GM thing to me. I saw some of the "Deathpool" outcries though and it´s probably better to be on the safe side.
What is trying to be done with the Pathfinder Society Academy and its guidelines to the scenarios is expand on what will require the GM to do less work couching adult content like Zarta's Toys. We are keeping everything spoiler free with warnings like movie ratings to explain content in a scenario.
There are somethings parents might not want a GM at a convention to expose their child too. Like Mr. Falk said it is "better to be on the safe side." We would rather be on the safe side then have someone complain a GM was talking about Zarta's Toys in front of their child.
Content warnings are never a bad thing. Even adults such as myself have use of them though there are only two scenarios that tend to push it for me.
Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Spokane
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I was a little disappointed about the upcoming GM Suli race boon. I know several people who worked very hard to gather the 4 elemental races to make a suli and now it will be a single boon. Thankfully I haven't played mine yet and will simply re purpose the individual elemental race boons and wait for my Suli (I GM a lot of smaller cons).
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One word of advice on the idea of content warnings, though.
Please don't let it become a bludgeon to coerce individuals who are not comfortable with certain topics into 'going along with the crowd' under peer pressure.
Unlike 'playing up', sometimes content could be a bit too much for players, and there should be some sort of provision there to mitigate some of the adult nature while at the same time maintaining the sense of adventure.
A different campaign I was with for a few years has had problems with this. But they are trying to handle it.
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One word of advice on the idea of content warnings, though.
Please don't let it become a bludgeon to coerce individuals who are not comfortable with certain topics into 'going along with the crowd' under peer pressure.
Unlike 'playing up', sometimes content could be a bit too much for players, and there should be some sort of provision there to mitigate some of the adult nature while at the same time maintaining the sense of adventure.
A different campaign I was with for a few years has had problems with this. But they are trying to handle it.
Not 100% sure what you are saying. But if you use a strict RSVP system and pick the scenarios ahead of time, then players can make the decision on whether to RSVP or not based on the tags.
Then there won't need peer pressure.
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One word of advice on the idea of content warnings, though.
Please don't let it become a bludgeon to coerce individuals who are not comfortable with certain topics into 'going along with the crowd' under peer pressure.
Unlike 'playing up', sometimes content could be a bit too much for players, and there should be some sort of provision there to mitigate some of the adult nature while at the same time maintaining the sense of adventure.
A different campaign I was with for a few years has had problems with this. But they are trying to handle it.
Not 100% sure what you are saying. But if you use a strict RSVP system and pick the scenarios ahead of time, then players can make the decision on whether to RSVP or not based on the tags.
Then there won't need peer pressure.
Get out of my head Andy! I was thinking pretty much that exact same thing.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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(Is there a transcript of this? The recording is 2 hours apparently - I'm kinda impatient with podcasts and would rather skim through text.Hmm...I don't know that the podcast team does transcripts. That's a good question.That also sounds like a lot of work for a human to do. Maybe someone could run it through a voice-to-text program, but then some human would have to go through and format it and attribute the things said to each person.
I was afraid of that.
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(Is there a transcript of this? The recording is 2 hours apparently - I'm kinda impatient with podcasts and would rather skim through text.Hmm...I don't know that the podcast team does transcripts. That's a good question.
Perram and Ryan usually work Podcast to Podcast, as in as soon as Episode 126 is done, Perram immediately gets to work on editing and Ryan begins gathering question data and coming up with a lose outline. Two weeks is NOT a lot of time when you're hosting podcasts for free.
We flirted with doing scripts (I scribed one or two episodes while they were recording), but it is a LOT of work for a thankless job. And ultimately, we want people to listen to the podcasts. That's why we make them, after all, and our site's ratings are based just as much on listens as views.
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I was a little disappointed about the upcoming GM Suli race boon. I know several people who worked very hard to gather the 4 elemental races to make a suli and now it will be a single boon. Thankfully I haven't played mine yet and will simply re purpose the individual elemental race boons and wait for my Suli (I GM a lot of smaller cons).
In 2013 when I first started PFS, I played my first game with a kitsune swashbuckler using a race boon that Ryan gifted to me. I had been on the fence about society play for some time up until that point (if you listen to the brief stint of Private Sanctuary podcasts where we co-hosted it together, you can hear some of our conversations about it). Giving me those boons (he gave me two to start) is what eventually got me to try the campaign.
Of course, one session after I started playing it was announced that kitsune, nagaji, and wayang would become always available!
People said to me for a while afterwards, "Wow, Alex. Tough break. You wasted a boon when you could have waited a month and done it for free." I never felt that way though, personally. I got my early access, even if it was just one session, and more importantly, I could make more characters without using up my remaining boon.
But hey, who knows? I've been told I'm weird.
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Get out of my head Andy! I was thinking pretty much that exact same thing.
One word of advice on the idea of content warnings, though.
Please don't let it become a bludgeon to coerce individuals who are not comfortable with certain topics into 'going along with the crowd' under peer pressure.
Unlike 'playing up', sometimes content could be a bit too much for players, and there should be some sort of provision there to mitigate some of the adult nature while at the same time maintaining the sense of adventure.
A different campaign I was with for a few years has had problems with this. But they are trying to handle it.
Not 100% sure what you are saying. But if you use a strict RSVP system and pick the scenarios ahead of time, then players can make the decision on whether to RSVP or not based on the tags.
Then there won't need peer pressure.
Hehe... great minds think alike?
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(Is there a transcript of this? The recording is 2 hours apparently - I'm kinda impatient with podcasts and would rather skim through text.)
Anyway, claudekennikol's question seems to have become the main issue in this thread. It's a good question, though I don't quite agree with his standpoint.
It does seem that S7 is the Year of the Skill Check. Yed to dip into Ultimate Intrigue a couple of times to show off the new stuff. I'm looking forward to see if debate rules make it into a scenario. (Maybe they already have?)
I think to some degree S7 is mirroring a gradual change in PF as a whole. Starting subtly with Ultimate Campaign, but much more clearly with Occult Adventures and dashing out of the closet with Ultimate Intrigue, Pathfinder is venturing into a new territory. Before, the game was strongly focused on "classic" D&D themes: dungeons, caves, fortresses, forests; and confronting monsters therein. But now we get something new: adventures in the middle of settled society. City stuff. Of course you could always do that before, but these products give you a lot more tools to make adventures that really build on it. The city isn't just a place with more NPC clerics than average and less dungeon walls than average - it's a place with intrigue possibilities, with monsters hiding among the populace like wolves among sheep. Occult Adventures already posited a theme of "what ordinary people don't see" and Intrigue takes off from there.
So this is a new dimension to PF. It was always possible, and was used here and there. But now there's a lot more scaffolding for it. And we can expect that to show up in scenarios.
I think the Faithless and Forgotten trilogy is great. 1-5 adventures have a responsibility to show new players what's expected of them. If low-level adventures teach you that only combat is what's important, then it's gonna be hard to write high-level adventures where you suddenly need other
My 2 cents!
The only thing I did not like about this trilogy is that part three was a 1-5 also.
I ended up leveling out of the trilogy after part two.
Players should be made aware of that fact before playing part one.
John,
Is this possible ?
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As I noted in the podcast interview, my standard is to include at least one encounter that the PCs might bypass with creative thinking, wordplay, and/or skill checks.
It's pretty rare that the team creates an adventure that a group can't just punch their way through; they exist, but it's the exception rather than the norm. More common are the encounters that the PCs cannot talk/skill check their way past, inevitably resulting in combat. That doesn't mean that every scenario has such a bypass-able encounter; some are all combat, but others have a few more skill-friendly backdoors.
Everybody comes to the table with slightly different desires, be that in-depth roleplaying, steam-venting by killing monsters, or just the desire to experience a fun story to escape the travails of the real world for a few hours. When addressing the needs of the negotiator-style players out there, I base it on what I would enjoy; I play a considerable number of skill-invested and "diplomancy" characters, giving me a solid (albeit not all-encompassing) understanding of what helps those players/characters feel accomplished. For me, that's being able to use my character's skill to bypass (or significantly ease) one encounter in an adventure—or use such skill to earn a key secondary success condition or piece of treasure.
If you feel that Season 7 has invested a little too heavily in the Skill Focus feats, that's valuable feedback that I can take into consideration while working on Season 8. I think you'll also find that the rest of Season 7 has plenty of opportunities to punch villainy in the face—while also having some roleplaying moments to experience even more of Golarion's flavor.
My perspective is only from those three scenarios (and I've GM'd the Consortium Compact so I guess 4 scenarios). So I can't give an informed opinion as I haven't been exposed to most of season 7. I just know that if I had been playing a fighter in those three scenarios I wouldn't have felt like I contributed much at all, except for maybe the last of the three with the "anti-chase" where I could have contributed with combat maneuvers. So again, while I've heard that season 7 is "the year of skill checks" I don't have enough experience with season 7 to make that claim--just with those three scenarios.
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Im kind of surprised your a four star GM and you haven't come across that stuff yet. Admittedly, a lot of the wonky stuff you'll never see on the player side (ie. Modules like Godsmouth) but the weirdest thing I've ever come across is the fact that as a Dark Archive member you can complete an objective by recovering Zarta's BDSM toy. When I ran that scenario I was so happy that it didn't come up because well there was a young kid at the table.Pathfinder Academy is surely a good idea, but to an european, some things like safecleaning the scenarios sounds very american^^
Now i don´t know every scenario, but i think Paizo keeps most things between the lines and safe anyway, so it seems more as an GM thing to me. I saw some of the "Deathpool" outcries though and it´s probably better to be on the safe side.
Well i´m only a 3 star GM yet.
I did come across Zarta though, just forgot about her.Thing is, being in europe, i don´t think Zarta is widely seen as youth endangering. That´s just a culture difference i think.
For kids up to 12 years probably, you would just make that a teddybear or something. For teenagers, can probably just stay as is.
In fact, i daresay Zarta is even a good rolemodell for girls (and orientation for boys).
She´s a powerful woman who is in charge and enjoys her personal freedom.
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Have not been able to listen to the show yet as I'm deployed and need to wait until the audio version is available for download, but, on the subject of skills, I did have a few things to say.
In the general sense, yes, I do think that making PFS more skill heavy is a bad idea as there are just too many classes that really have no way to contribute. It's a consistent problem with PF in general that 2+Int Characters just do not cut it when it comes to skills, and most of those classes are either very MAD already or need to keep Int fairly low. 4+Int is often just hitting the bare minimum a class needs to keep up with all the skills it needs to. The other side to that is that PFS specifically has two really terrible habits when it comes to skills.
1.) they try to implement other skills to substitute for something, which is sort of demeaning to characters that DO invest in what should be the actual skill in question, but it also teaches players not to worry about things like that. But, since we wouldn't let a Wizard use their Int and Caster Level for Attack rolls just so they can contribute to a melee, why should non-social , (and it primarily is social skills I'm talking about here), get around that?
2.) It really seems that PFS over-emphasizes some skills far too much. I'd don't remember how many times I've seen a Scenario call for a Know Arcana check to find out information about a religious cult or even a knighthood's crest. Or to identify herbs for an NPC McGuffin or whatever. In my opinion, Know Arcana specifically, and a little bit Know Local as well are used far too often and for things really not under their purview. But this is true for other things as well. We all know that Perception is the best skill in the game, (or at least arguably top three), though I honestly can't think of a fix for this without rewriting the rules. You can be sure that you will roll at least 4 Perception checks per game, while a Sense Motive (moderately useful and common) or Know Engineering (uncommon and generally not important anyway) may not come up at all and half the time they do it's because a player makes it happen.
So, if PFS endeavors to do anything with Skills, I'd hope it looks at improving them around these two issues, attempting to even out the skills used more, but not doing so by just allowing other things to compensate or fill in for a skill just because.
Additionally, speaking about using Diplomacy, I'm really on the fence. Let me first say I'm one of those players who likes to use Diplomacy to get out of fights. I enjoy it, and I like rping that some of my good characters want to avoid bloodshed in many cases, particularly when many times we don't really know half the story behind it.
However, I've been a player at tables where I have been able to talk enemies out of combat, and while it's great (for me) for that to work, it also does tend to annoy other players that are build for combat, or who just want to unload from real life and roll some dice, or who just enjoy that part of the game. Everyone enjoys different things, and while it's great that some people like to RP with every NPC out they can, that's not what everyone wants, and it is just as annoying to other players as it is when there is that one guy/gal that forces everyone else to fight when the party doesn't want to.
I've been on the opposite side of that as well, being the only character that actually wanted to take prisoners, ask questions, and find out information with a few other players going out of their way to slaughter everything, (even coup des gracing an enemy we had neutralized I'd specifically asked them to leave alone for information). They decided to do it anyway, and the DM said there wasn't anything I could do. It happened repeatedly and I walked away from my first ever special having absolutely no clue what had even happened, as it was literally one meaningless combat after another and zero story or plot. It was a terrible experience in my opinion, and one I really have no way of even learning what the story was supposed to have been until I can get my last star, which will be a while.
But, I've also been in the position where, no matter what I say, how well I roll, or whatever, the scenario just requires a combat. Not because it's an ambush, but because the scenario says so, or the NPC is absolute.
I've not really run or played too much of Season 7, both because I'm deployed and just not running as much as I have been, it seems a lot less requested than others, and to be honest, I'm just not that interested in man of the scenarios. Occult Adventures is one thing, but the scenario descriptions and quick flip through just isn't really catching me, so I can't say if I think it has gone far enough, too far, or still a bit more to go.
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I've been on the opposite side of that as well, being the only character that actually wanted to take prisoners, ask questions, and find out information with a few other players going out of their way to slaughter everything, (even coup des gracing an enemy we had neutralized I'd specifically asked them to leave alone for information).I don't need to tell you this, but for any inexperienced GMs out there: this is clearly a violation of the "don't be a jerk" rule. Not going out of your way to help take someone alive is one thing, but going out of your way to coup de grace a neutralized enemy that a player has explicitly stated they wish to interrogate is clearly interfering with your fellow players, and not only can a GM stop this, they absolutely should.
Can't the exact opposite also be true? What about a situation in which 6 people are sitting at the table, 5 of them clearly want to straight out kill their adversaries, yet one guy wants to keep them alive and asks the party not to kill him/it/whatever. It's definitely not as simple as you imply it is.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Have not been able to listen to the show yet as I'm deployed and need to wait until the audio version is available for download, but, on the subject of skills, I did have a few things to say.
In the general sense, yes, I do think that making PFS more skill heavy is a bad idea as there are just too many classes that really have no way to contribute. It's a consistent problem with PF in general that 2+Int Characters just do not cut it when it comes to skills, and most of those classes are either very MAD already or need to keep Int fairly low. 4+Int is often just hitting the bare minimum a class needs to keep up with all the skills it needs to.
Most of the 2+Int classes you are talking about can benefit from multiclassing into a 6+Int class.
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Can't the exact opposite also be true? What about a situation in which 6 people are sitting at the table, 5 of them clearly want to straight out kill their adversaries, yet one guy wants to keep them alive and asks the party not to kill him/it/whatever. It's definitely not as simple as you imply it is.
I generally maslow it.
- If the person is needed for a faction mission/faction card/ prestige point/faction award that person gets dibs
-If not, they belong to whoever dropped them.
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Can't the exact opposite also be true? What about a situation in which 6 people are sitting at the table, 5 of them clearly want to straight out kill their adversaries, yet one guy wants to keep them alive and asks the party not to kill him/it/whatever. It's definitely not as simple as you imply it is.
It certainly can. I thought I'd had mentioned this above, but might have left it out, as the point was I could see it from both sides, and different people get different things from the game. One of the regulars in my home group is very clearly just there for the combat, and likes to roll dice. It's sometimes frustrating as the GM sometimes as he often doesn't care about the story or background of what's going on, but then again that's the part of the game he enjoys, and he doesn't generally go out of his way to rob others of the chance to RP or explore, he is just not that interested in it himself and kind of goes wallflower mode.
I don't need to tell you this, but for any inexperienced GMs out there: this is clearly a violation of the "don't be a jerk" rule. Not going out of your way to help take someone alive is one thing, but going out of your way to coup de grace a neutralized enemy that a player has explicitly stated they wish to interrogate is clearly interfering with your fellow players, and not only can a GM stop this, they absolutely should.
Well, in this particular case there where multiple enemies, and I'd asked the party in character to leave one alive and was opting to deal Non-lethal damage. One of the many enemies, (and it has been a while so do not recall exact details) was put to Sleep, and there where multiple other opponents they could have gone after. Instead, he chose to 5ft Step and kill the one that was asleep, explaining that in his opinion it was better to permanently kill than risk them getting back up later (very unlikely). I know at least one other player (a Cavalier) also wanted to find out answers, so it wasn't five against one, but, if I recall two against two, and the other player or two not really carrying one way or the other. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the GM was friends with the other two and let some things slide in their favor, but I can't say for sure.
It is what it is.
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Can't the exact opposite also be true? What about a situation in which 6 people are sitting at the table, 5 of them clearly want to straight out kill their adversaries, yet one guy wants to keep them alive and asks the party not to kill him/it/whatever. It's definitely not as simple as you imply it is.
I generally maslow it.
- If the person is needed for a faction mission/faction card/ prestige point/faction award that person gets dibs
-If not, they belong to whoever dropped them.
It's actually not too hard to not kill in PFS. Just to be clear, I'm speaking specifically about killing, not dropping an enemy. Most enemies do not die when they get to 0 or -5 HP, which in the early levels is reasonably one hit.
Even in larger combats, it's almost always better to move on to another opponent than to spend another attack or another round making sure that one who is dropped or helpless dies.
The only real difficulty I can see is possibly in taking a prisoner in the middle of the wilderness and needing to carry them along, drag them through the streets, or in super stealth mini-missions, though I wouldn't say any of those are that common.
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I thought Season 7 was The Year of Dead Players... Seriously its been pretty bad, for new players that started this game during the early part of of the season it had to be a bit disheartening... Thought I secretly enjoyed it when most of the party failed their will save to what I refer to as "Razmir's Lullaby"... Those that survived were forever imprisoned for treason...
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Have not been able to listen to the show yet as I'm deployed and need to wait until the audio version is available for download, but, on the subject of skills, I did have a few things to say.
If you'd like I could try my hand at video-capturing and converting it to .mp3 for you? I honestly don't know how long it takes the KD guys to do that sort of thing - not looking to step on their toes, but if it normally takes awhile, I'd be happy to do it for ya.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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I think Silver Mount Collection is the only scenario I've ever encountered where not killing a person that you might not want to kill is challenging.
Really? If my party wasn't full of save vs suck characters there was a Season 7 scenario that would have been ridiculously challenging.
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I thought Season 7 was The Year of Dead Players... Seriously its been pretty bad, for new players that started this game during the early part of of the season it had to be a bit disheartening... Thought I secretly enjoyed it when most of the party failed their will save to what I refer to as "Razmir's Lullaby"... Those that survived were forever imprisoned for treason...
This hasn't been my experience with season 7 at all.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I've only skimmed this thread, and haven't listened to the podcast, but saw the subject of content warnings come up. I feel the need to weigh in:
This is my opinion, of course, but I don't feel you need to do this. It's unnecessary. As a form of "negative advertising" the only effect it will have is to lower the visibility of certain scenarios as people stay away from something they feel is tainted, or end up playing it specifically because of content and then complain because they feel it was, ultimately, not "that bad."
An adequate GM will know when things need to be scaled back (or dialed up, frankly), and we should be allowing our GMs to make those decisions based on their table. If they are not doing a good enough job, coordinators will hear about it and those GMs can be given a bit of direction on how to handle those situations in the future.
As a bit of added perspective, please know that I run two game stores, have offered regular PFS gaming for seven years, and I have a reputation as a "family" store. I have never experienced a problem with content complaints.
Edit: I lied. I did, once. But that was a *player* who could not stop spouting off about how to "treat a slave properly." I actually had to shut him down a couple times, and ultimately threatened to ban him from the store if he wouldn't shut up about it. Nowhere in the scenario was there any issue, however - it was just the player.
Which, I think, says a lot. You allow players to be as near evil as it is possible to get, without actually putting "E" in their alignment, and they push far more boundaries than any of your authors ever have. I don't see the point of having content warnings when the players, themselves, will sometimes take things far beyond where they should ever go.
Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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I thought Season 7 was The Year of Dead Players... Seriously its been pretty bad, for new players that started this game during the early part of of the season it had to be a bit disheartening... Thought I secretly enjoyed it when most of the party failed their will save to what I refer to as "Razmir's Lullaby"... Those that survived were forever imprisoned for treason...
Dead players you say....? Mr. Brammer runs a tougher ship than I do.... Not even seen much of an increase of player character deaths either to be honest! - despite our best efforts :-).
Seriously though I can only think of one and it was a pregen!
W
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I've only skimmed this thread, and haven't listened to the podcast, but saw the subject of content warnings come up. I feel the need to weigh in:
This is my opinion, of course, but I don't feel you need to do this. It's unnecessary. As a form of "negative advertising" the only effect it will have is to lower the visibility of certain scenarios as people stay away from something they feel is tainted, or end up playing it specifically because of content and then complain because they feel it was, ultimately, not "that bad."
An adequate GM will know when things need to be scaled back (or dialed up, frankly), and we should be allowing our GMs to make those decisions based on their table. If they are not doing a good enough job, coordinators will hear about it and those GMs can be given a bit of direction on how to handle those situations in the future.
As a bit of added perspective, please know that I run two game stores, have offered regular PFS gaming for seven years, and I have a reputation as a "family" store. I have never experienced a problem with content complaints.
Edit: I lied. I did, once. But that was a *player* who could not stop spouting off about how to "treat a slave properly." I actually had to shut him down a couple times, and ultimately threatened to ban him from the store if he wouldn't shut up about it. Nowhere in the scenario was there any issue, however - it was just the player.
Which, I think, says a lot. You allow players to be as near evil as it is possible to get, without actually putting "E" in their alignment, and they push far more boundaries than any of your authors ever have. I don't see the point of having content warnings when the players, themselves, will sometimes take things far beyond where they should ever go.
I tend to agree. Of all the scenarios that I can think of off the top of my head, it wasn't an issue that something "adult" or "taboo" or whatever was included, but rather it was an issue with how it was presented and used and basically went out of it's way to goad interparty conflict. It did often revolve around Zarta/Cheliax Faction material, and the big one I can think of involved retrieving a painting that by all rights, any good aligned religious character should and all Clerics and Paladins, (and now Inquisitors, Warpriests, etc.), should want to destroy, even if it is a Faction mission. It wasn't that it was too "adult" for the players, but because it wasn't a very well thought out thing to include in a game that includes classes that can fall and a cooperative game. Granted, this is an old example that doesn't really apply too much anymore, nor was it universal at the time.
The only real other example outside of this sort of thing I can think of was a few years ago if I recall, speaking about, I believe it was Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment where one of the encounters was described as a suicide. I remember someone on the boards had brought up they wish it had been called out, as he or she had just lost a friend related to that in real life, but the main point they where talking about wasn't removing it as much as asking how mandatory, (run as written), that single aspect was, and trying to see if there was a way to reflavor the encounter.
Speaking as a parent and often the DM, I see it as my responsibility to monitor, be informed, and decide what content I want to allow my children to experience, but also my players, and that's not something I want anyone else to do for me. There are just far too many things to consider. Back when I was running 3.5 I had a table of brand new players, one of which I had recently discovered was, in real life, terrified of spiders, and to the point that even thinking of them, (such as an encounter with a human-sized one), made them feel physically uncomfortable. Different places, cultures, etc. . . are also going to have very different views on what is appropriate, and that's their right and responsibility, not anyone else's to judge or make the call on, similar to what Benjamin Falk said up thread, (though I wouldn't call Zarta a role model by any stretch. :P
Pathfinder Academy is surely a good idea, but to an european, some things like safecleaning the scenarios sounds very american.
Thing is, being in europe, i don´t think Zarta is widely seen as youth endangering. That´s just a culture difference i think.
For kids up to 12 years probably, you would just make that a teddybear or something. For teenagers, can probably just stay as is.
In fact, i daresay Zarta is even a good rolemodell for girls (and orientation for boys).
She´s a powerful woman who is in charge and enjoys her personal freedom.
It's better to just let individuals make the calls as needed, playing down things as needed rather than, I don't know worrying that someone's feelings may be hurt.
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Talking about making random skills better.
It's one things to say the DC is 25 and you can use craft artistry, or profession scribe, or perception. and then EVERYONE rolls perception.
And something different to say. DC is 20 for craft artistry, or profession scribe and (+5 or dc 25 however you'd prefer to word it) for perception. This benefits people who take these "less used skills" because it's a reward for having them, an easier DC. Whereas currently the only perk is to stand out, be different and have no one able to assist.
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Talking about making random skills better.
It's one things to say the DC is 25 and you can use craft artistry, or profession scribe, or perception. and then EVERYONE rolls perception.
And something different to say. DC is 20 for craft artistry, or profession scribe and (+5 or dc 25 however you'd prefer to word it) for perception. This benefits people who take these "less used skills" because it's a reward for having them, an easier DC. Whereas currently the only perk is to stand out, be different and have no one able to assist.
It's up to a GM to make a table decision if a skill might provide a 'synergy'/circumstance bonus to a given roll.
This happened *a lot* in one of the recent Season Seven scenarios, and it was a SIGNIFICANT reason for our party's success in one.
In addition, I've only run into a couple of judges that would go super-pedantic if a player has a good skill that wasn't listed that would work well for a given roll.
Contributor—Canadian Maplecakes
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On a related note of Skill Checks, and peripherally tied into the discussion of future scenarios...
When I tend to design encounters based heavily around skills, I make a list of appropriate skills when interacting with an NPC. I tend to include one or two rarer skills (Like Profession [Librarian or Taxidermist]) along with two or three more common skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate).
The idea, is that the rarer skills get a decent reduction in DC, while I otherwise run on the assumption that one or two PCs has maxed out one of the remaining skills. This way, there should be enough methods for players to overcome the skill challenge without feeling it 'impossible'. At the same time, it also rewards players who bring some of the weirder skill choices.
Yes, it's possible that players won't have any of these skills, or that the one who does, fumbles their checks. That happens. It sucks, but it's pretty much the same as running into a fight unprepared.
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Drogon, another aspect of the rating that was brought up on the podcast was giving scenarios a difficulty rating in terms of prep, so that GMs would have a "heads-up" when a scenario used complex rule sets.
I know I've had newer GMs feel frustrated when a they try their hand at a low level scenario hoping it will be a simple dungeon crawl and then find out they need to spend hours learning rules they never looked at before. I'm definitely in favor of that aspect of the rating.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Drogon, another aspect of the rating that was brought up on the podcast was giving scenarios a difficulty rating in terms of prep, so that GMs would have a "heads-up" when a scenario used complex rule sets.
I know I've had newer GMs feel frustrated when a they try their hand at a low level scenario hoping it will be a simple dungeon crawl and then find out they need to spend hours learning rules they never looked at before. I'm definitely in favor of that aspect of the rating.
While I don't necessarily disagree with this idea, my experience has been that 90% of GMs prep their scenarios the night before (if not day-of). It's the same problem we've all had since high school: procrastination of homework. While I hate to sound unsympathetic to the plight of New GM Person, their problem is more easily solved by doing two specific things:
1 - Play the scenario first (ideally within a couple weeks of when you will be running it).
2 - Give yourself at least four sessions of prep (read-through, map and minis prep, statblock and rules prep, thorough read-through again). Expect those sessions to each last longer than an hour.
Which, once again, amounts to trust in GMs being adequate, and relying on coordinators to speak with their GMs when they are *not* being adequate. "Warning" signs on documents won't help make poor preparation better done.
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Drogon, another aspect of the rating that was brought up on the podcast was giving scenarios a difficulty rating in terms of prep, so that GMs would have a "heads-up" when a scenario used complex rule sets.
I know I've had newer GMs feel frustrated when a they try their hand at a low level scenario hoping it will be a simple dungeon crawl and then find out they need to spend hours learning rules they never looked at before. I'm definitely in favor of that aspect of the rating.
While I don't necessarily disagree with this idea, my experience has been that 90% of GMs prep their scenarios the night before (if not day-of). It's the same problem we've all had since high school: procrastination of homework. While I hate to sound unsympathetic to the plight of New GM Person, their problem is more easily solved by doing two specific things:
1 - Play the scenario first (ideally within a couple weeks of when you will be running it).
One huge difference I've found between playing in a small town vs. the Denver area is that if the newer GMs never take a spoiler, then the olders GMs never get to play anything new. It is much easier to make recommendations like this when you know that an adventure will run multiple times in an area.
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1 - Play the scenario first (ideally within a couple weeks of when you will be running it).
That´s kind of a luxury not everyone gets and that´s nothing to do with being a veteran or not. Quite often there´s just nobody available.
I totally agree on the 4 hours prep though. That also raises the quality of the game a lot.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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1 - Play the scenario first (ideally within a couple weeks of when you will be running it).
That´s kind of a luxury not everyone gets and that´s nothing to do with being a veteran or not. Quite often there´s just nobody available.
I know this (and saw your reply, too, Eric).
But do coordinators in these areas *never* run older scenarios? Or is every single adventure only ever run once?
"I'm a brand-new GM" is not really compatible with "I'll run this adventure having never played/seen/heard anything at all about it." That is just a fact. If you're brand-new, you will be much helped by running something you've played, first, even if it hasn't been recently.
I guess what I'm saying is, as a coordinator, police your GM requests a little bit. I've found that veteran GMs (often with 3 or more stars) avoid GMing adventures more than once, and tend to jump all over the older adventures I offer - usually the low-level ones. If I have a new GM who is nervous, I will try to manipulate things for him so that he is running something he will have at least seen before. To do this, I have to tell veterans "no" sometimes, or ask them to switch to something else.
In fact, I've found I have the opposite problem you and Eric are describing: unless I get a steady influx of newer GMs, I struggle to get people to take the new scenarios. Veteran GMs in my area seem to be more concerned about whether they will get character credit, and refuse to "spoil" their player runs.
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Oh yes, we run older scenarios. I try very hard to provide newer players the opportunity to experience older important plot points. The problem is that when you are dealing with a small player base, once you run an oldie for the people who started playing within the last two years, there are not enough people left to risk running it again for a year or more. Thus, only with new scenarios can I get the possibility of running it for a newer GM and then having them return the favor for another table.
Thankfully I do have some older GMs that understand that if we don't take turns taking spoliers, PFS will just die in this area, except maybe for con play. And some of the newer GMs understand that with 200 adventures to catch up on, it doesn't really matter which they take spoilers on.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Eric Ives: I'm sort of in the same situation as you, coordinating (with two other VAs) 3 stores in neighbouring cities. We rotate sessions between game stores in the weekends. The player base overlaps a fair bit.
Two things have made our life a lot easier however:
1) Warhorn and a "To be determined" placeholder scenario. We put up a session 1-2 months in advance and see who signs up. As the date draws nearer we chose a scenario that the people who've signed up to play can still play.
2) Our nice session tracker, in which you can easily search for scenarios a given group of players can all still play for credit.
Those tools make it a lot easier to find potential scenarios for people to run.
Apart from that, us VAs here don't really mind rerunning a scenario for no credit. It's a very handy option to have if you suddenly need an extra table. I've had scenarios go a lot smoother on the second run, too.
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I do agree with Drogon that taking prep seriously really matters. It helps that I really enjoy the process though.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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So, yesterday, I got interviewed by Know Direction about Play-By-Post Gaming!
I think it went well, and there were a number of shout-outs about the high quality of the PFS community. Ryan and Perram had loads of good things to say about our scenarios and the wonderful people who play PFS. If you missed it, you can hear it on Youtube or by clicking the above link.
So here are some links that I wish I could have added to the program.
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PbP PFS Lodges
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Paizo PbP Recruitment Forum
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Painlord's Guides
Painlord's Guide to Advanced PbP Play
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People talking about what makes PbP fun
Hmm, both links under lodges direct to the same website - Flaxseed.
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So, yesterday, I got interviewed by Know Direction about Play-By-Post Gaming!
Wow! That is great! Will have to go listen to it.