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Re: Ferious Thune's spoiler, I've certainly volunteered information to players if the quote is funny, as well. Marcos Farabellos has an amazing line in All for Immortality 2 that is difficult to get PCs to ask about, but it's well worth the table reaction.
Did the same. And don't get me wrong - this frustrates me so much I try very hard to distribute the relevant information. That doesn't mean everybody does, and when it's outright written that way, it doesn't help things.
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Re: Ferious Thune's spoiler, I've certainly volunteered information to players if the quote is funny, as well. Marcos Farabellos has an amazing line in All for Immortality 2 that is difficult to get PCs to ask about, but it's well worth the table reaction.Did the same. And don't get me wrong - this frustrates me so much I try very hard to distribute the relevant information. That doesn't mean everybody does, and when it's outright written that way, it doesn't help things.
Oh, the sacrifices we make...
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Because some scenarios have consequences for the PCs not asking the right questions during briefings, I try as much as possible to provide only the information that they ask for, but do I try to be generous with my interpretations about which answers apply to their questions. That said, I love some of the quotes that come up in the Q&A and try to work them in as much as possible. For example, the answers from Valais in Thralls of the Shattered God particularly tickled me and I strongly encouraged (okay, pushed) the players to pursue all lines of inquiry. :)
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So, stuff not related to the original topic has been concealed in off-topic spoilers.
Drandle Dreng, for his part, reminded me of a campy Deckard Cain - past the days of being a brave and wily adventurer, but still smart and useful enough to do other things. So he ended up with a Deckard Cain voice. I think that's crept into a few other GMs' toolboxes locally too.
Eliza Petulengro: She was one of my favorites. While she sometimes came off as snobby in boxed text, both when I present her to players and when I've seen her presented by other GMs she always cared about the well-being of her agents in a way that many other Venture Captains didn't in early seasons.
Osprey: I have always liked Secret Agent Druid, and maybe it's my soft spot for him that taints my opinion, but I try to GM him as a hard-ass with a heart of gold type character, I think because the one time I encountered him back in Season 0 (in To Scale a Dragon) that's how my GM ran him. We had a very different experience from Flying Deuce Jacks McGuffin, Leaves Party to Die in Snow that I saw described by others, and that may well have been the GM going off script - I have never read or run To Scale a Dragon.
Drandle Dreng: Already discussed a bit in my first off-topic spoiler, Drandle Dreng reminds me of the Diablo franchise's Deckard Cain. Past his prime, but still smart and a font of knowledge. I always assumed he woke agents up in the middle of the night as an object lesson in, "Always be ready!"
Sheila Heidmarch: Never got over the taint of Race for the Runecarved Key, where she asked the agents to do some pretty amoral and underhanded things, not to mention showing a callous disregard for the lives of her agents in general. There's a great character development arc here, and as a GM she's one of my favorites to see, but my non-Seekers almost universally despise her.
Ambrus Valsin: I try to map Ambrus' personality to my college track coach. He seems harsh, and I do try to depict him that way when I GM, but also like he's invested in seeing the people he's pushing succeed. He's pushing the PCs to be the best field agents they can be.
Jorsal of Lauterbury: Quite possibly my least favorite VC. He's just Generic Paladin Guy being shoved down the players' throats. The characters who encounter him probably respect him, but his mere presence triggers this player's gag reflex for being such a flat, predictable waste of page space. A missed development opportunity whose role (universally popular white knight NPC) was usurped by VCs who didn't seem like the author was obviously trying to make someone with universal popularity.
Aram Zey: Until a certain recent 4-star special I really wasn't that interested in him one way or another. Just a boring haughty wizard stereotype. I warmed up to him after aforementioned special, though, and there are hints that he's just distance as an emotional defense against the field agents he invested his time and training in. I'd like to see his personality explored more.
An interesting theme - my opinion on the VCs differs pretty dramatically from my characters' opinions on them. I wonder if there isn't a gap between what is said about the VCs by characters and what players actually feel that creates an illusion that there is more dislike for the in-game Venture-Captains than actually exists?
OK... Back on topic. I have heard bad things about our in-game bosses from players, both locally and at some of the large conventions (Gen Con, PaizoCon, Origins). Sheila Heidmarch seems to be the most common whipping post for her outright awfulness in Race for the Runecarved Key, both parts, but Drandle Dreng, Aram Zey, Osprey, and Eliza Petrulengo have all been the targets of b&+~!ing about the competence of leadership. In every case I can recall, the issue boils down to sending a Society team in uninformed/unprepared, or asking the Society agents to do something horrifically amoral/wrong.
The best things a Venture-Captain can do in-game to foster the PCs respect is to treat the PCs respectfully and provide useful briefing information. You don't need to bribe them with stuff - look at the number of positive responses in this thread alone to Holgarin Smine, Eliza Petulengro, and Calisro Benarry. I can't remember any scenarios where they gave us gear (though, to be fair, I can only remember one scenario with Calisro in it), but they are positive, supportive, and their blurbs/briefings provide information that pays off in the adventure. They're putting the agents in harm's way, but they're 1) up front about that and 2) providing as much useful information as they can without being dicks about it. The biggest no-no, I think, is belittling the PCs or making them play 20 questions to get obvious information.
I think an interesting way to try to rehab the image of some of the Venture Captains mentioned here (Dennel Hamshanks as a test case?) would be to do a short arc where that VC gives the party their missions. In the beginning of the arc, the PCs fail because that VC did {activity that VC is frequently blamed for}. Through the remaining two parts of the arc, the VC has an opportunity to explicitly change that practice to the benefit of the party, and at the conclusion of the third scenario in the arc the players actually see the VC having demonstrated learning and growing as a character from the experience. Until Abducted in Aether, Aram Zey looked like he was going this route (unfortunately, then Abducted in Aether happened). Not sure if that's feasible without being obvious and forced, but it would be interesting to try.
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Some scenarios the questions and answers are things that you're trying to get out of another character, and some they're just pieces of information that might come up in conversation. Valais, for example, might be more difficult to get useful information out of for spoiler reasons. Or there are scenarios where you're basically interrogating someone who might not be completely helpful. What I'm talking about is something more like this:
The PCs may have questions for the trade prince about the wake those attending it. These are a few likely questions and Aaqir’s answers.
Is there anything special we should wear? “The local custom is to wear at least some white. However, Zarmina had many foreign contacts who are likely to attend in many styles of dress, so as long as you are clean and presentable, you are welcome to wear what you wish.
Who are these five merchants?
“I or one of my assistants shall point them out as they arrive. Their names are Pellius Melkior from Andoran, Doritannia Raffella from Taldor, Temel Passad from Druma, Jakti al’Awar from Qadira, and Metella Rauger from the Five Kings Mountains. I understand that Passad, al’Awar, and Rauger are particularly influential.”What will you be doing during the wake? “I shall do my duty as a host and member of the family, as shall my husband Emir and our daughters. I would appreciate your taking care not to draw them into your business today, as my dear spouse in particular does not approve of my affiliations with the Society.
If the PCs don't ask anything, I might have Al'Hakam offer in parting something about underdressed characters needing to clean up for the event. And I'd probably paraphrase the answer to the third question regardless, since that is more about Al'Hakam making sure he and his family are not bothered during the event, and so that the PCs know they can't rely on his help once things start.
The second question is really the one that contains the information that might influence choices that the PCs make during the scenario. If the conversation goes anywhere in the direction of who else will be there, even if the PCs don't specifically ask about the merchants, I'm likely to read that response. For example, if the PCs ask, "Will there be other Pathfinders there?" I might respond with something like, "No, just you. But the people you need to be concerned with are the five merchants. My assistant and I will point them out..."
Rather than coming across as unhelpful or throwing the PCs into a situation unprepared, he'd hopefully seem more like someone who wants these people he's bringing to the event to represent him well. If the answer to a question like will there be other pathfinders is just "No," then he starts to seem unhelpful.
Does that make sense? I try to use the answers to the questions to drive my roleplaying of the NPC. Sometimes, yes, there will be information the PCs should only get if they ask about it directly. But for the most part it's information the VCs should and would probably share with the PCs. It's just presented as a Q&A so it's a little more interactive and not a big block of exposition during the briefing.
And, of course, there will be situations where the PCs aren't showing the VC respect or seem completely uninterested in what the VC has to say, and in those situations I think it's justified to have the VC be reluctant to continue the conversation. There are also a few scenarios where a character is written as being in a hurry, so they wouldn't stick around to volunteer information. A GM should always use their own judgement based on the situation in the particular scenario.
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Venture-Captain, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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The only bribe I can think of from Calisro is letting you use a folding boat to get to a mission, which some players have cleverly used during said mission.
Not how that scenario plays out at all.
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The only bribe I can think of from Calisro is letting you use a folding boat to get to a mission, which some players have cleverly used during said mission.
Not how that scenario plays out at all.
** spoiler omitted **
You must be thinking of a different scenario.
Benarry lets the PCs borrow her folding boat
Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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In our lodge there are no realy disliked Venture Captains, but there are many jokes about some of them. (Like Shielas suicide missions or Drendles wake up calls) But the wake up calls were much better recieved after playing one (Season 0) scenario where we could wake up him and now it is "canon" that this is his way for revenge. But it is all played in a funny fashion.
The best recieved "Venture Captain" in our area is by far Valeis Durant who got elevted to VC of the year -> she is an very interesting charackter and what helped in her case was the simple fact, that she accompanied us (it made sense in that mission) but it helped tremendously that she was willing to do SOMETHING (even if she was not fighting) rised our opinions of her greatly. An other very liked VC is Calisro Benarry, she knows what it is like to be on the field and you get the feeling she is doing something other than paperwork and her greetings are always fun. (The alcohol she offers for free helps -> and you see she does it not only because it is expected)
For general advice to make characters more likeable i would first get rid of ANY Zartrastyle (season 4) suicidebriefings and try to have VC where it matters that you got this VC and not one of the others.
The biggest concern my players told me about their VCs is something that can not be solved: The VCs send Teams on missions that are CLEARLY the wrong for the mission or they lack the right tools and are send to be slaughtered. This is a pure metaproblem becuase this depends on the players at the table but it falls back to the captains who thaught it would be a great Idea to send a group with highest INT 7 on a research mission (I had a blast playing this one) or 4 Social chars in a meatgrinder when they should have clearly better options for the mission.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Regarding Sheila, I remember that the Night March starts with Sheila pointing out that we need to help Kalkamedes since he's a former Pathfinder, and We Take Care Of Our Own.
I have not, personally, seen her act differently in any scenarios I've played. In fact, it strikes me that in my area, Sheila's bad reputation is solely the result of a single player pointing out she's a horrible person whenever the topic of venture captains come up.
...I'm surprised Nigel Aldain hasn't come up in this thread so far. While not a VC, he is your boss (as in, the guy who hired you) in several scenarios and he has quite the bad rep...
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I have not, personally, seen her act differently in any scenarios I've played. In fact, it strikes me that in my area, Sheila's bad reputation is solely the result of a single player pointing out she's a horrible person whenever the topic of venture captains come up.
It's probably from race for the runecarved key. Where she is in fact a Horrible person. A good pathfinder, but a horrible person.
Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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My reaction to Sheila has been mostly positive... When I did a lead-in intro for Murder's Mark of Crows (my all-tengu pbp game of Murder's Mark) I actually spent time drawing out a bit of Sheila's operation in Heidmarch Manor. The medium of PbP allows you to do more detail than you'd ever be able to include in a live game.
I researched her and her lodge's staff from her intros in several different scenarios and from Seeker of Secrets. Oh, and I hit up two local Venture Lieutenants (Keith and Jack) for information about Sheila that would be fun to bring out. It was a lot of fun being able to put a bit of time into an intro, but it also helped my team set their characters and inter-group chemistry before I threw them into the main adventure.
Not having played Race for the Runecarved Key, I've never seen Sheila at her worst. I've seen her frosty. I've seen her strong. My main complaint with Sheila is that she gives out way too little information in her briefings. But that's my beef with a number of the VCs!
Hmm
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My main complaint with Sheila is that she gives out way too little information in her briefings. But that's my beef with a number of the VCs!
And when that lack of information gets people hurt , i can tell you the responses here are mild.
The board would filter out the exact response, but lets just say that if I and a log peavey were in the same room at the same time my supervisor waited outside.
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Drandle Dreng is the greatest treasure of the Pathfinder Society because he's basically Dr. Farnsworth.
"Good news, everyone! The kobolds beneath Absalom are fighting each other!
Surprisingly, I am not seeing enough hatred for Osprey in here.
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Venture-Agent, Ohio—Columbus
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2) Ambrose Valsin was always the favorite VC, largely because one of our real-life venture captains looked exactly like him, and GMs always asked him to come read the briefing. I think he also gets some love from his behavior in the Disappeared.
We've had people tastefully bring up the background on the Dissapeared (and what you found), at various briefings for either Ambrose or Zarta specifically the one's where Zarta is there to hand out the Dark Archives's missions - or Ambrose handing out missions to Dark Archive members and grumbling about come back or he'll be in trouble.
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Venture-Captain, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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The only bribe I can think of from Calisro is letting you use a folding boat to get to a mission, which some players have cleverly used during said mission.
Not how that scenario plays out at all.
** spoiler omitted **You must be thinking of a different scenario.
Benarry lets the PCs borrow her folding boat
Nope your description is vague enough to be two scenarios apparently.
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Surprisingly, I am not seeing enough hatred for Osprey in here.** spoiler omitted **
I feel that part of Osprey's charm is the contempt that he shows towards PCs seems to stem from an assumption of competence. Aram Zey won't explain things to you because he assumes you're too stupid to understand whereas Osprey doesn't want to spoon feed things to field agents because he figures they can figure things out on their own.
He also gives off a vibe of, "I'm a druid who can teleport, I don't want to hear about what can't be done."
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I was introduced to Sheila Heidmarch in Shattered Star, not PFS, so I never had much hate for her. (And I'm unlikely to ever get to play the Runecarved Key - on the rare occasion I'm at a con, I'll be GMing.)
Not at all! You can schedule Race at one of your local game days! All you need are four tables playing the scenario simultaneously and you are good to go.
Talk to yer local Venture Leadership for help to schedule this. Or, find 19 other people and do it yerself.
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No she gives you the boat in that scenario too.
I think we're talking about two different timings then.
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I was introduced to Sheila Heidmarch in Shattered Star, not PFS, so I never had much hate for her. (And I'm unlikely to ever get to play the Runecarved Key - on the rare occasion I'm at a con, I'll be GMing.)
RftRK is being run at TavernCon in October -- but it's the Sunday morning slot so you're unlikely to be awake. (or at least, unlikely to be happy about being awake.)
Contributor
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I was introduced to Sheila Heidmarch in Shattered Star, not PFS, so I never had much hate for her. (And I'm unlikely to ever get to play the Runecarved Key - on the rare occasion I'm at a con, I'll be GMing.)RftRK is being run at TavernCon in October -- but it's the Sunday morning slot so you're unlikely to be awake. (or at least, unlikely to be happy about being awake.)
Are we going to that? I wasn't sure yet. ^_^
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Are we going to that? I wasn't sure yet. ^_^I was introduced to Sheila Heidmarch in Shattered Star, not PFS, so I never had much hate for her. (And I'm unlikely to ever get to play the Runecarved Key - on the rare occasion I'm at a con, I'll be GMing.)RftRK is being run at TavernCon in October -- but it's the Sunday morning slot so you're unlikely to be awake. (or at least, unlikely to be happy about being awake.)
We are also running it here in February. But I can understand not wanting to spend Valentine's Day weekend in Minnesota. It can be a bit cool here that time of year.
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Contributor
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We are also running it here in February. But I can understand not wanting to spend Valentine's Day weekend in Minnesota. It can be a bit cool here that time of year.
I have no car, and two states (or more, depending on route) is a bit far to ask someone for a lift.
Thank you for the thought, though. ^_^
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Now, that's obviously a rare situation, but it was quite well done. Not many scenarios I can remember the briefing for 4 years later.
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It's only two states away as the Tengu glides, but needing to drive around Lake Michigan makes it more like four. And one of those is Illinois. <shudders>
Living *in* the state of Illinois I can understand your trepidation. It only took them a YEAR to pass a budget that will run... six months.
Shame the ferry doesn't run at that time, and shame there's no one here heading up...
Back on Track!
I've only pulled the "Okay, so what have we missed?" question to two VC briefers, and the response both times was "*insert trivial bit of information that's really not important.*"
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I understand your feelings, John, but those two Venture Captains, in particular, have earned their scorn. Sheila established herself as very casual towards the lives of agents under her command and all-too-ready to commit crimes against innocents. Dreng has never done much to earn anyone's respect.What are a few things that Dreng would need to do or contribute to in order to earn someone's respect—minus his appearing slightly more presentable?
1) give the pcs a chance to noise him out of bed or potentially get to sneak up on him ;)
2) have him come up in a scenario when not the quest giver to make him more pertinent (maybe a bit like in Trouble in Tamran does with X)
3) My personal preference would be for a high star special where we get to see some cool high level insights into those in charge and why they are this way in a 'We be VCs' type scenarios. I think in some way DD has the potential to be more than an ill dressed loon who gives out missions but does not always come across with hidden depths.
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Nah, Drandle is a Master Spy and his Disguise is far too high for some puny ghost skill modifiers. Every time you receive a briefing at the Grand Lodge, be it Ambrus, Shevala or someone else, chances are it's actually just Dreng flexing his Lion Blade subterfuge muscles!
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I've found myself playing up the sympathetic angle with some VCs because the mission briefing doesn't usually do a good job of projecting competence or care for their charges. Sometimes it's easier than others.
One trope I rely on, maybe too frequently, is that when the VC is asked a question they don't have the answer to, instead of saying "I don't know" or "You'll need to find that out for yourself" I try to say something along the lines of "Our sources haven't been able to provide that information." or "We've prioritized getting the answers to other questions we had with the time and resources we had available. I promise you, our diviner hasn't been able to spare a spell for herself in days. Now, we haven't learned anything about that, but let's talk about..." [insert other important thing the party hasn't asked]. When in doubt, you can say "I'm sure you can figure it out. We chose this team for a reason." (That last one works much better in 5-9 and 7-11 tiers than it does with the 1-5s...)
A fun variant of this works with Kreighton Shane in a couple of later scenarios. Ex: "I've paid more than I... probably should have in order to get you this card." At the end of that conversation the PCs said they were kind of touched by his devotion to his friend, which I felt unjustifiably happy about.
Players generally seem to respond well to that sort of mild embellishment. It depresses me sometimes when a GM arbitrarily decides that a VC is kind of a nasty excuse for (meta)humanity or is otherwise a waste of space, and even more so when that gets picked up on by their players when those players GM, but I think that's just a consequence of leaving the VCs' manners and mannerisms somewhat ill-defined. A lot of people don't have good experiences with management in real life and they project that onto fictional management, or they played a lot of early season games and just absorbed the idea that most VCs have a bad attitude towards the players.
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I've found a lot of respect for the Master of Swords lately. His leadership in the All for Immortality arc is refreshing. A couple things I really like about his portrayal there:
- He treats the PCs as trustworthy and capable, acknowledging that Seekers are well-tested by this point in their career.
- Some of his lines are basically inside jokes that he's willing to share with only Seekers.
- He talks about missions he's already sent other teams to do that provide context for the Seekers and show that he's a capable leader that follows up on leads.
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Venture-Agent, Ohio—Columbus
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I'd love to see what people put together for VC background and "feel" guidance... but it's the sort of thing that would be a lot of work to keep up-to-date, so I feel weird asking for it when I wouldn't have much to contribute.
I can't like this enough. There are times I've run things and only gotten the personality of one of the VC's after the fact in different scenarios. We reuse the VC's enough that perhaps we could get a small document with a bit of their history and personality.
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I don't get the Sheila hate.. but I will concede on occasion she's been woefully uninformed in the situation at hand.
That being said.. I LOATHE:
-Drendle: 3am wake ups for stuff you've known about for weeks? The running gag is he doesn't send pages for this character as she's usually crawling home at the point (he's waiting at the gate)
-Osprey: Osprey and Kyrie has this mutual loathing society thing going. He hates her snark at briefings and she frequently asks which lover/ex-lover/friend she'll find dead in the ditch as part of the mission.
-Aram Zey.: its more a 'I don't deserve your scorn' thing with him. As my Alchemist Runt put it recently when a certain season goal was realized 'He's a D@#$ but he's our D@#$,"
MOST of my issues is some of the other mission briefers have a very very casual attitude about things like: getting there, getting back, knowing what is coming, what is up, and such.
For example in a specific interactive HE KNEW what what coming but what do the players get is something along the lines of 'Hey something is up.. be alert.. caw caw " as he flies in and flies out.