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I know this will meet with a lot of negative reactions and i apologize for that. But I believe it would do more good than not. I would like to request that the replay rules be revised. I believe it would help the PFS community at large. I think that you should be allowed to replay a module for credit as long as it's with a different character.
The reason for this is there are many players who have played many many games and are forced to go elsewhere to try to find a game. The current options of core play and DMing help to alleviate the situation a little but i'm not sure its enough. I'm not sure why as a community we would ever discourage game play. We all know players who have either stopped coming to PFS events or decide to cherry pick games because they have played so many.
I apologize for any hurt feelings this request may initiate, but i belie it would be in the best interest of the community. Thank you for producing a great role playing environment in which we all can thrive.
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Steven beat me to it (thank you, sir!).
It comes up a lot, but there usually isn't new information provided on either side. The biggest impediment is the huge damage done to other Organized Play campaigns by allowing replay - few theoretical issues or regional problems can overcome that huge body of evidence.
With the sanctioning of so many modules and APs, and the increased numbers of Evergreens, replay is becoming less necessary, if anything.
But again - Mr. Nightray is a model Forum citizen!
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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huge damage done to other Organized Play campaigns
With the sanctioning of so many modules and APs, and the increased numbers of Evergreens, replay is becoming less necessary, if anything.
While both true, it won't solve the problem until there are sufficient new material to make 1 or 2 games a week all using new material.
As soon as you start scheduling events with material that is older than 2 weeks and you have more than 5 people in a play group, then you start running into conflict.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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James: that's true of course, but don't discount the "soft" conflict of people groaning that they're going to replay the Confirmation for the fifth time.
Playing twice a week is hard to sustain, given a publication schedule of two scenarios per month. Using modules and APs you should be able to keep it for a long time. If you GM roughly 1/6 times (consistent with a 5-player-plus-GM table) it becomes doable.
Of course scheduling is still a hassle, but there are various tactics that can help.
The best help available at the moment is the combination of Warhorn and the Session Tracker that Simon developed. You set up a table, people can sign up. Once a few people have signed up you look in the session tracker to see what scenarios they can all still play and you select one of them.
Comparing a back catalog of nine seasons for five players by hand is tedious. Computers are great for it.
Simon is also looking at a reverse method: for a given group of people, render a list of little-played scenarios. So that you can post a scenario that's likely to get people to sign up.
Since we adopted the session tracker the general satisfaction with scheduling here has gone up a lot, and we're also seeing more play of older scenarios.
It's not a definitive answer, but it takes away a lot of the pain.
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I agree you run into conflicts - but that is part of the nature of Organized Play. Any time (rate of consumption) > (rate of production), you're going to hit the wall eventually.
(And congrats on the 5th Star, by the way, James! Just announced.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Of course scheduling is still a hassle, but there are various tactics that can help.
In 5 years of weekly scheduling of games, with some spots where I basically said "I give up for 6 months", it is always a problem.
I've found when you have less than 20 players in a group, the only way the group fires games is with a large chunk of the group playing every session (confirmation repetitively and more). This means that core group are the gung ho types who also drive hours to play the nights we don't run. So they are the type that make the games fire and make them hard to schedule.
If you haven't done scheduling for a 1-12 person play group, you wouldn't recognize how much of a complete pain in the butt it is to make games fire behind the scene.
Ultimately it doesn't matter. Either PFS is rocking 20-60 players a week and scheduling is trivial or you make it hard to schedule and the people trying to bootstrap up a local environment get burned out.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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(And congrats on the 5th Star, by the way, James! Just announced.
Woot thanks!
You have 183 tables of credit.
The specials were my bane, I had 3 last May, and got my 10th Special at GenCon 2016.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@James: I understand your troubles, I'm in a similar situation myself (though a few years shorter). Using tools to dig father into the back catalog has helped a lot. And actively managed scheduling with Session Tracker+Warhorn means that it happens almost never that people travel to something they can't play (when it does happen it's usually their own fault for not maintaining the record of what they've already played). So at least you avoid that problem.
But we do feel the pinch, especially with 1-5 scenarios. It gets worse when people go through a sort of relay race period of each of them making a new level 1 PC just when we got everyone else ready for 3-7 scenarios.
I'm hoping that the experience gained with Tome of Righteous Repose will help formulate an Evergreen concept that can serve as a backbone here. It looks a lot easier to stock a dungeon with different monsters than randomly generate a fresh plot every time a scenario is rerun. So far I'm more enthusiastic about replaying Tome than Confirmation.
@Lamplighter: enforcing it is of course an issue, but it helps to remind players that it's very immediately in their own interests to maintain it. Self-maintenance rate is pretty good, although we do of course send the occasional reminder mail to people to update their reports.
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Organized Play Coordinator
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We do feel the pain of players wanting games and are looking at ways to mitigate it while still keeping the campaign integrity intact.
I thank the posters, that they posited ideas politely and kept the discussion cordial. Let's keep the conversation going and see where it leads us!
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I'm hoping that the experience gained with Tome of Righteous Repose will help formulate an Evergreen concept that can serve as a backbone here. It looks a lot easier to stock a dungeon with different monsters than randomly generate a fresh plot every time a scenario is rerun. So far I'm more enthusiastic about replaying Tome than Confirmation.
I think that Tome has been a remarkable success. I've played this something like 6 times now (and run it about 3) and I'm still enjoying it. Not, admittedly, as much as I enjoy a brand new scenario but way more than the Tier 1 Evergreens.
It would be nice (no idea how possible) to expand on the roleplaying and puzzle possibilities. But at least the exploration/combat side is well handled.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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While I'd personally love to use more expanded narratives it doesn't solve the issues I see.
Something like Glutton for punishment to all V* would be nice once a season. You have Agents, Lieutenants, and Captains choosing who can replay what, often the scenarios chosen by the VA/VL/VC permitting them to add players to tables to replay for credit to make a table fire.
In theory this should eliminate all the bad beats you find in other OP. Mainly because the people choosing what they can replay for credit is not the person getting the credit.
Example:
Fred sees #9-10: Here we go again is being ran again. He's a fan. It has a familiar / magic item far below cost / prestige class not allowed in PFS on the sheet he would love to use again.
He goes to the event and wants to farm that scenario.
The VA/VL/VC has 3 for #9-10 so he opts to let it fire with a pregen and offers Fred a seat at #9-06: Being Human at Last and Fred plays as he wants to play but doesn't get to farm like he'd hoped.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I can see the use case ("Boy, I'd really like to run X, and everyone except Bob can play it. I'll glutton Bob and everyone will be happy.")
But on the other hand I can also see a risk of (perceived) favoritism: "you're keeping me from replaying today but last week you let Joe replay", or "you're keeping me from replaying X because you think I'm boon-farming, but you're the one who scheduled only X for this week".
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The specials were my bane, I had 3 last May, and got my 10th Special at GenCon 2016.
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The specials were my bane, I had 3 last May, and got my 10th Special at GenCon 2016.** spoiler omitted **
Edit: Turns out I was wrong on timing - the 10 the special hit at table 115
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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** spoiler omitted **The specials were my bane, I had 3 last May, and got my 10th Special at GenCon 2016.** spoiler omitted **
Being able to run the specials trough Play by Post also has helped immensely. If I counted right, I'm at 8 specials at the moment. Still need 20 tables. In march we have a local con, and I'll bag two more specials.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I recently had an idea that could work, it pretty much removes the issue of boon farming, but could introduce people replaying "easy risk free" scenarios to push their characters XP total:
After your first replay/you have taken a second GM chronicle, you can still replay a scenario for credit (if you are allowed to do so by having earned GM stars, have gotten access to a replay via a boon) but instead of the scenarios chronicle sheet you will receive a new replay only chronicle sheet.
That new replay chronicle sheet would list tier appropriate gold for the tier you have played, a line to write in the scenario you have just replayed and if you want, could [b] add actual boons on the chronicle:
Just a couple of quick examples, in those cases the player would need to select one and cross off the others.
Meeting the enemy:
Your experience with a new kind of enemy prepared you for the next time you are facing this kind of creature. Add a field for the GM to enter the subtype of one enemy faced in the scenario.
Cross of this boon to gain one of the following effects against creatures with the listed subtype for 2 rounds: +2 to attack rolls; +2 to saving throws against supernatural and spell-like effects; +4 bonus to your AC for the purposes of critical hit confirmation rolls.
Scouting the location:
Your experiences in this area prepared you for your next mission. Add a field for the GM to list a terrain type from the Ranger's favored terrain class feature.
Cross of this boon to gain the Favored Terrain Class feature (just reprint the class feature when in doubt) for this scenario.
Memory of the fallen:
A fellow Pathfinder died during your mission and whether or not he was eventually brought back, you want to prevent it happening again.
You can cross off this boon to cast stabilize as an immediate action. Alternatively, you can cross of this boon, pay 8PP to cast breath of life as a standard action (though you can't target yourself with this effect). In both cases thread your HD as your CL for level dependent effects.
Of course, these are just quick and dirty examples, there are plenty of options to tying the "current" replay chronicle to the current season if that is required.
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Advantages:
Players will not be able to access certain boons more than they already can, thus avoiding the need to deal with certain very powerful boons.
Since there seems to be a real need for more replay in certain locations to make it possible to give out more replay opportunities (maybe via VO/player boon) but limit those new ones to only provide the new replay chronicle (allowing a player to replay the scenario for the original credit when he can access a normal replay opportunity.
Downsides:
It makes replaying a scenario a bit less special, but to be honest since it is my idea, I am having a hard time finding real downsides.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I'm rather intrigued by Sebastian's ideas. I like the flavor of the boons, and I think it could alleviate several of the "farming" worries.
And if a scenario has particular shinies you really want, you can still use star replay on it. (Have to say, with Expanded Narrative on the table, it's suddenly much easier to find playables for me.)
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I really like Sebastian's idea. Hell, I'd even be content with a boon-less sheet with average GP (unless they're negative boons, of course). I'm not necessarily playing for the boons, I just want to get my characters to higher levels. The items on the sheet don't interest me unless they're unique and can't be gotten anyway, and that's where, as Lau said, Expanded Narrative comes in. Giving a custom "replay sheet" or just crossing everything else off the sheet if you say you're replaying it fixes a lot of problems with boon farming.
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Very much like the possibility of something like what Sebastian mentioned. I've been in an area where it was sometimes impossible to get a table to fire because we had x (greater than 1!) too many people that had already played scenarios before.
There are times that I don't even want anything that is on the sheet but just to make the table work so other people can play.
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As I hear it, 6th level is the problem given you only have two tiers that allow it.
That's where I run into the most roadblocks. Especially since I prefer to play scenarios at high tier. So I try to leave my 5-9s for my 8th and 9th level characters, and 7-11s for 10th-11th. That only leaves 1-7s, 3-7s, and modules for my 6th and 7th level characters. I'm not sure how many 1-7s I even have left. Dalsine Affair might be the only one.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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*posts a cool idea!*
I like this. One thing that would be a worry is that a lot of older scenarios didn't have cool boons. So the replay sheet in some instances might be preferable to the actual chronicle sheet for the scenario =/
Overall I like this though because it solves the problem of "farming scenarios."
It doesn't solve the problem of replaying players spoiling the fun of others, but that's just a problem of people being jerks and you can't fix that.
With some refinement it's got my vote to test out as maybe a 5 replay chronicle a season thing, to see how it goes. That way if it leads to some unforeseen issues, its not making a major impact. But it does feel like another star replay kind of thing, just a different flavor.
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Sebastian's suggestion is worth looking at in detail - it certainly removes the biggest problem with replay from my perspective. I would leave boons off of it, so people aren't seeking out replay just to get them.
Another way to handle replay without boon farming would be to still use the regular Chronicle but just cross out all boons and items, keeping just the gold and prestige.
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I put forth the idea before, but it didn't seem to garner much attention: we could remove the level two restriction on Tier 1-2 replay. These adventures are already replayable, so the effect on the campaign would be minimal, and it would mean no longer having to track which evergreens you've played at second level, and which ones you can still play at that level. Not having to explain the restriction to new players would be a welcome change, too.I think that this change makes even more sense, in light of Tome being evergreen across the entire tier 3-7 range. Plus, with an evergreen path into tier 3-7 games, it would enable the campaign to shift some of its focus away from putting out quite as many new tier 1-5 scenarios, and maybe replace them with a few more 3-7s.
This does make a lot of sense to me, especially as a GM. I find myself building up a stack of 3 XP credit babies, pretty much entirely from 1 XP replayables. I'm creating them faster than I can actually play them. I'd much rather have a few 6 XP babies than a swarm of 3 XP ones.
I'm not sure when the "only once at 2" rule originated (it's been around at least since the Confirmation), but now that we have so much content under that umbrella, I'd appreciate it being revisited.
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*posts a cool idea!*I like this. One thing that would be a worry is that a lot of older scenarios didn't have cool boons. So the replay sheet in some instances might be preferable to the actual chronicle sheet for the scenario =/
Overall I like this though because it solves the problem of "farming scenarios."
Gah! You bringing this up also brought up something from my recollection of older scenarios -- not all gold totals are the same for various scenarios at level. What happens when the replay sheet would then have more gold on it then the old scenario...
You drop it below average of all seasons, then your hurting the people helping make your table fire.
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I'd love to see an evergreen way to 3rd and then eventually 5th.I put forth the idea before, but it didn't seem to garner much attention: we could remove the level two restriction on Tier 1-2 replay. These adventures are already replayable, so the effect on the campaign would be minimal, and it would mean no longer having to track which evergreens you've played at second level, and which ones you can still play at that level. Not having to explain the restriction to new players would be a welcome change, too.
I think that this change makes even more sense, in light of Tome being evergreen across the entire tier 3-7 range. Plus, with an evergreen path into tier 3-7 games, it would enable the campaign to shift some of its focus away from putting out quite as many new tier 1-5 scenarios, and maybe replace them with a few more 3-7s.
I really like this as well for exact the same reasons. If you make an official petition to Paizo, I would definitely support it!
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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I really like this as well for exact the same reasons. If you make an official petition to Paizo, I would definitely support it!I'd love to see an evergreen way to 3rd and then eventually 5th.I put forth the idea before, but it didn't seem to garner much attention: we could remove the level two restriction on Tier 1-2 replay. These adventures are already replayable, so the effect on the campaign would be minimal, and it would mean no longer having to track which evergreens you've played at second level, and which ones you can still play at that level. Not having to explain the restriction to new players would be a welcome change, too.
I think that this change makes even more sense, in light of Tome being evergreen across the entire tier 3-7 range. Plus, with an evergreen path into tier 3-7 games, it would enable the campaign to shift some of its focus away from putting out quite as many new tier 1-5 scenarios, and maybe replace them with a few more 3-7s.
I wouldn't.
As it is only playable with a 2nd level once, the chances that there will be multiple 2nd level characters is slim and the combats might still be slightly challenging. If you remove the restriction, chances of multiple level 2s increases significantly and all those old evergreens can't handle that.
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I wouldn't.As it is only playable with a 2nd level once, the chances that there will be multiple 2nd level characters is slim and the combats might still be slightly challenging. If you remove the restriction, chances of multiple level 2s increases significantly and all those old evergreens can't handle that.
The evergreens actually have provisions built into them for the 'higher tier'.
It's not the fault of older scenarios if character 'power creep' has rendered some of them more or less obsolete even at L1.
In addition, I have seen some characters that really need to be L2 for some of these evergreens because they aren't very good at L1...
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Crypt of the Everflame really supposes the characters are level 2 when they're facing the final boss. That thing's really unfair versus fresh level ones.
And yeah, I believe First Steps and The Confirmation are the only ones that don't have a level 2 adjustment, that's half of the available evergreens, and after (barely) having survived a recent Confirmation, I'd like to say that final encounter isn't level one material. It can easily oneshot PCs and its to-hit is pretty decent as well.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I do agree with Auke that the L2 tier of the Confirmation is a bit tame. I've been able to challenge players with the L2 tier of the Wounded Wisp well enough though. Haven't really evaluated the L2 tier of the Consortium Compact, but if you pick enemies carefully you can make some of the fights fairly tough even in the L1 tier.
For modules Quentin has a point that many of them are written assuming you level up somewhere during them, so for those opening up L2 as replayable probably wouldn't break anything. Maybe even make things better (because all-L2 parties are probably going to be rare, expect rather a 50/50 split).
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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The beauty of the random enemy tables is that they all advice that you can pick and choose to suit your parties need. Both the wounded whisp and the consortium compact are very good at this.
The confirmation may lag behind a bit with the normal encounters, but the last one has been known to TPK lvl 1 parties.
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I am very much in support of Sebastian's idea of a generic replay chronicle. A few flexible boons with small bonuses and average gold for the tier (or the GM can write in max gold from the scenario's chronicle if it is less). It's an elegant solution- give a benefit to players helping tables fire but remove the incentive to boonfarm.
Then maybe special generic replay chronicles with some nicer boons ("the GM may write in one animal encountered which you may now use as an animal companion" etc) for convention rewards.
I like the idea of removing the level 2 restriction on evergreens as well. Less bookkeeping and more player flexibility.
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I'm still opposed to more opening up of replay than it is right now. Indeed, given that the "expanded narrative" boon is widely available for recharging GM stars, there already is a fair amount of selective replay.
A generic replay chronicle sheet would eliminate boon farming. However, it wouldn't eliminate gold and xp farming. There is a subset of our community that views getting characters to high levels as a sort of score, as a measure of "winning". (The same urge is probably what made unlocking achievements a powerful motivator for video game console players, even though if you think about it it's all very meaningless and gratuitous.) Once you know a scenario, you can move through it more efficiently... and that's exactly what can ruin it for new players at the table.
I don't know enough about Living Greyhawk to know what was motivating the constant replay. However, we have to be constantly aware of Drogon's "same faces" (and the wrong faces) showing up to play the same scenarios all the time. That'll kill organized play while it's still going....
For people who use up all the scenarios and can't find any more replay to do: have you considered home games? If your area is supporting four gamedays a week, then there must be enough people out there looking for gaming that you could get a home group together. Play adventure paths and modules (if you haven't already burned through them in PFS), or play 3rd party modules (of which there is a wealth). This can scratch your itch to game without requiring that your gaming be PFS.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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I don't know enough about Living Greyhawk to know what was motivating the constant replay. However, we have to be constantly aware of Drogon's "same faces" (and the wrong faces) showing up to play the same scenarios all the time. That'll kill organized play while it's still going....
Living Forgotten Realms was killed by replay.
Living Greyhawk had no replay whatsoever.