Here goes...
Awhile back I played the mod 'the darkest vengeance.' The GM who ran it didn't really know the darkness rules and we beat the final encounter because of it. Later, I learned that this was done wrong, and another GM said he would run it with the proper rules.
Myself, two friends, and a pregen went in. We played the mod right, and it led to us abandoning the mission and running away. Because deeper darkness at lvl1 which can be stacked on itself? That is impossible to beat. After our improvised IED failed to do anything, we got on our boats and lived to tell the pathfinders of our failure. It was an awesome night. The pregen may or may not have died...
...imagine my surprise when I found out that I got no credit for playing the game. Instead, any potions used/wand charges used count against me. But I got nothing for it.
I asked if I could retire an old character to build this one up, and was told no, that old character which I don't plan on using anymore keeps the scenarios he played and no other character can use them.
Why is this? I see now that I have 2 other PFS characters, a lvl4 and a lvl5. Games tend to repeat. Which means that as time goes on, I'm going to run into this more and more. Either don't play for the week, or risk losing a character and certainly lose resources.
I then learned that there is a thing called 'evergreen.' Scenarios that you can play over and over again. Why is this? Why pick a few scenarios that will bore you to tears because you've played them so many times, and not allow people to replay other adventures?
And I also don't think it is fair to say 'you know the scenario so you will ruin it.' I know for a fact that people 'peak ahead' in modules ahead of time. Roleplaying already works on an honor system, so we trust people with (a) and not with (b)...
I get the idea that this might encourage people to GM...but that isn't for everyone. It seems like this is just a way to force out veterans. Which seems horrible for a community. And given that we have evergreens, I really don't get why we are condemned to be bored playing the same few scenarios over and over if we want new characters.
It also makes me sad...because I played a scenario last week with a 7 man table. It was my first time playing a lvl5 character...and a lvl8 wizard beat every encounter in a single round. The table was chaotic, the gameplay was horrible (buff for 1 round and the combat is over), and the GM was certaily frustrated. It was a really bad experience, and I was hoping to try again with a table that was smaller and more in line with levels. Now I know that I won't get that chance unless I wand to risk a character dying for no gain whatsoever.
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Wouldn't it be better to have other restrictions?
(1) Boons can only apply once to a character? This way you don't farm scenarios
(2) Lower gold for a character who replays a mission (which if you think about it, would handicap veterans as they'd end up with less gold than everyone else...which they could probably make work but which would add a new challenge)
(3) No fame and/or prestige for playing a scenario with a new character
As is, I've tried home games. And I loved it. But with my work/family schedule, PFS is best for me as it's gaming without commitment. Each week I can decide whether or not to go based on my schedule, without feeling like I'm letting my group down, falling behind in xp, or just plain old missing the story.
With PFS rules, I see that I'm going to hit a block where I'll be 'timed out' of gaming. And that I won't be able to indulge my restartitis, because finding scenarios for new characters will get harder and harder.
Well...rant over. But I'm really disappointed in PFS for this.
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Just to address the "timed out" comment, that is a virtual impossibility. Using myself as an example, with 35+ characters, 8 of which are level 12-15, I still have several dozen scenarios/modules left to play and GM.
If you're new, you'd have to play/GM every day for two years straight to max out everything.
That's hardly worthy of a complaint, IMO.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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It also makes me sad...because I played a scenario last week with a 7 man table. It was my first time playing a lvl5 character...and a lvl8 wizard beat every encounter in a single round. The table was chaotic, the gameplay was horrible (buff for 1 round and the combat is over), and the GM was certaily frustrated. It was a really bad experience, and I was hoping to try again with a table that was smaller and more in line with levels. Now I know that I won't get that chance unless I wand to risk a character dying for no gain whatsoever.
I am sorry, that you had a bad time. Unfortunately, this can sometimes happen, 7 players tables are supposed to be very rare, but I experienced pretty much the same with fewer players.
It happens, and I personally try to hold back when my characters are close to dominating the scenario so everyone can have fun.
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Unfortunately even replaying without credit, is only allowed to make a table legal (so pretty much only when there are two other players who want to play for credit).
On the positive side, there are lots of scenarios and modules to play, new ones are released every month, and as you mentioned they are evergreens (those are designed with replay in mind).
If you like to start new characters, evergreen scenarios and modules can help you to get almost to level 3 (and there is #8-07 for level 3 characters), but without high-level characters, you can't play some scenarios (without playing a pregen, and some not even with a pregen). There a lot of really nice stories in tier 7-11 scenarios, and it would be a shame for you to miss those. (And when they offer high-level content, you might have nothing to play at that time)
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The issue if replay gets raised every couple of weeks, and if you want to search the board for it, there are very interesting discussions on the topic. Some people have had very bad experiences with unlimited replay, while others consume material at an accelerated rate and thus would appreciate replays quite a bit.
Of course, depending on your local situation, a limited player base can make it very hard to offer certain scenarios, especially the really good ones, since GMs tend to like to offer them.
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There is also Core mode play, which essentially forces you to create new characters (with strict limitations) but allows you to replay every scenario in Core mode.
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Try contacting your local venture officer and tell them about your negative experience and what kind of scenarios you would like to experience.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I do have to wonder what would happen if the rules were changed so that you can replay the scenarios of a character that dies? Just a thought really.
Sounds like a very cruel result of "retirement" ^^
It likely won't convince those that fear the negative effects of replay, and it might be rather complicated when it comes to bookkeping.
To be honest, it might even lead to peer pressure for people to kill their beloved characters, just to make the next table of scenarios X-XX viable next week.
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Personally, while I love certain scenarios, and would appreciate the chance to get a free replay of maybe a handful scenarios that were spoiled by other player/GM's actions... I rather hope to find new awesome scenarios to enjoy.
Just the short list of scenarios I really enjoyed and schedule for players to experience (most of all of those will get a 5 Star review once I have the time. The List does not contain recent releases, but these days I read/run everything before I get the chance to play it..):
# 7 - 05 School of Spirits
# 6 - 18 From Under Ice
# 4 - 19 Night Marsh of Kalkamedes
# 4 - 13 Fortress of the Nail
# 5 - 13 Weapon in the Rift (Might be my favorite, warts and all)
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The way I understand the limited replay is due to mostly farming.
As an example, I played a scenario with a character that had really good rewards on the sheet. Now sadly I wasn't playing a character that could make the most use of those rewards, so I volunteered to GM it at another location shortly because I did have a character who would I felt would make great use of it (in fact, many characters could make good use of this particular reward). And then I volunteered to run it for another group a few months down the line and burned a GM star to get credit one more time because I thought that reward was simply that good.
Now... If that had unlimited replay, I would still be jumping at just about any opportunity to play/GM that scenario because I just really like the rewards on it.
There's other scenarios like that too, so the one play gives the scenario a certain feel of exclusivity.
But otherwise, like most of what the others have said, I've personally have 17 characters with chronicles on them and I GM far more than I play. I still haven't GM'ed half of the scenarios out there currently, and have only played roughly a third of them. That's a lot, and not counting modules or adventure paths.
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Other living campaigns have had unlimited replay, and it was bad. It's pretty hard to come up with an argument for them that trumps empirical evidence that they're problematic.
If you want, DM 10 times and you get your first star, you can use that for a replay that you can recharge every year by dming 3? games.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Keep in mind, you *can* replay (almost*) infinitely already, but there is a price. If you GM 10 games, you get a star, 20 games gets you another, and so on. Each of those stars gets you one free replay, and your stars can be recharged once a year, by GMing.
*for a definition of infinitely that includes 5 games a year forever.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Why is this? I see now that I have 2 other PFS characters, a lvl4 and a lvl5. Games tend to repeat. Which means that as time goes on, I'm going to run into this more and more. Either don't play for the week, or risk losing a character and certainly lose resources.
I don't know where you live or what your local gaming scene is like. But it sounds a bit strange that you're already running into a lack of fresh scenarios to play; with only two characters so far there should be loads of them still for you.
Maybe the problem is with the way you select which scenarios to schedule? If it's hard for your organizer to know what everyone has already played, it's harder to schedule scenarios everyone can still play.
We ran into this problem ourselves and one of our VLs wrote the PFS Session Tracker with which you can easily find scenarios that a given set of people haven't played yet.
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It's not a good scenario for level 1 PCs at all. While oil of daylight should be one of your early prestige point purchases, depending on a level 1-2 group to have one is iffy at best. Besides that the BBEG's death throes ability could be deadly even if they do "win".
IMO, this really should have been a 3-7 scenario.
This one pretty much ranks up there with things never to do in writing a 1-2 scenario. The second is using incorporeal creatures, the third is creatures with hardness. I'm pretty sure PFS has done all these.
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It's not a good scenario for level 1 PCs at all. While oil of daylight should be one of your early prestige point purchases, depending on a level 1-2 group to have one is iffy at best. Besides that the BBEG's death throes ability could be deadly even if they do "win".
IMO, this really should have been a 3-7 scenario.
This one pretty much ranks up there with things never to do in writing a 1-2 scenario. The second is using incorporeal creatures, the third is creatures with hardness. I'm pretty sure PFS has done all these.
This scenario still has the worst chronicle I've ever handed out. Four of the six had this, two of the six had this minus the body recovery.
1 XP
0 PP
5 PP Body Recovery
150 GP
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...Because deeper darkness at lvl1 which can be stacked on itself? That is impossible to beat...
Can you expand on this statement? I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I do have to wonder what would happen if the rules were changed so that you can replay the scenarios of a character that dies? Just a thought really.
I think a lot would totally suicide our characters at 32 xp after the mission debrief by jumping into the sea and drowning. 33 new scenarios to enjoy!
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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...Because deeper darkness at lvl1 which can be stacked on itself? That is impossible to beat...Can you expand on this statement? I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
** spoiler omitted **
Haven't read the scenario. Pretty sure Deeper Darkness doesn't stack, but usually it doesn't need to. One thing that first level characters can do in some situations, such as when dealing with creatures that don't carry gear, especially if you see what they cast it on, is cover the item that had DD cast on it. After all, DD is target object. Harder of course if the caster has their own gear they can cast it on.
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Obscuring mist.Cannot be counted on in 1-2.
It was just an example of a way to deal with vision issues at low level. There are other effective methods, too, but prior to my post people were claiming there was nothing to do about lighting. Obscuring Mist is on the cleric, druid, and sorcerer/wizard lists, so it is not particularly rare, and scrolls of it are cheap.
It is rough to use it as a scroll once in the darkness, but you can use it just outside as it is a spread. It is certainly more easy to acquire than the oils of daylight suggested upthread.
Grease, Burning Hands and Color Spray are also useful 1st-level CRB spells for fighting darkness users.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Obscuring Mist is a great equalizer against opponents trying darkness shenanigans. Those enemies usually also want to sneak attack, but they're not unchained. So they can no longer do that in the concealment provided by the mist.
All that for a 25gp scroll.
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I am not trying to be mean with this statement, but am fustrated somewhat.
The OP is upset that didnt get credit after replaying a scenerio, because found out it was against the rules. This isnt about the replay rules which has alot of threads already.
My concern is that 5 people sat down to play knowing one had played it already. Didnt anyone in this group read the Guide?
You could have saved yourself the time and fustration. And the OP isnt amoung the minority in this I am thinking. I ask at cons sometimes and get a lot of "no havnt read it"
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Obscuring Mist is a great equalizer against opponents trying darkness shenanigans. Those enemies usually also want to sneak attack, but they're not unchained. So they can no longer do that in the concealment provided by the mist.
AGREED! I remember a certain high level scenario set in a certain location where a certain set of the same certain creatures with a certain way to deal with daylight (multiple times) being equalized by somebody remembering to learn obscuring mist that day.
All that for a 25gp scroll.
Hard to do in deeper darkness. Thus why buying scrolls of daylight really are about as much use.
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Because some people just want to sit down and play and don't want to get bogged down in the minutia of campaign meta-rules.
If you are a new player, I agree, but if you arnt, there is an obligation to know the rules of the game you are playing.
I dont expect someone to go over all the reference document, but at least look up your character stuff. Read the guide to see how to build , rebuild and play your character.|
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Grumbaki go fill out the survey on the blog and tell them how you feel. Guarantee you'll feel better at the end.
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Just the short list of scenarios I really enjoyed and schedule for players to experience (most of all of those will get a 5 Star review once I have the time. The List does not contain recent releases, but these days I read/run everything before I get the chance to play it..):
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# 4 - 13 Fortress of the Nail
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Wow I completely disagree with that. Fortress of the Nail is a horrible scenario. There's barely anything to do in the first 3/4 of it. Everything is so easy it doesn't deserve the paper it's written on. Then the final encounter is so drastically overpowered compared to everything else in it. It's completely obvious they lowballed the CR for everything leading to the end so they could "balance" it by throwing a way too difficult creature in there.
Obviously this is my opinion and I don't fault you for having yours, I just completely disagree with it.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Just the short list of scenarios I really enjoyed and schedule for players to experience (most of all of those will get a 5 Star review once I have the time. The List does not contain recent releases, but these days I read/run everything before I get the chance to play it..):
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# 4 - 13 Fortress of the Nail
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Wow I completely disagree with that. Fortress of the Nail is a horrible scenario. There's barely anything to do in the first 3/4 of it. Everything is so easy it doesn't deserve the paper it's written on. Then the final encounter is so drastically overpowered compared to everything else in it. It's completely obvious they lowballed the CR for everything leading to the end so they could "balance" it by throwing a way too difficult creature in there.
Obviously this is my opinion and I don't fault you for having yours, I just completely disagree with it.
I like it for the theme and the mission... the high tier end boss is ... silly, but I have seen groups obliterate it. But yeah not a sceanrio where I would suggest players to play high tier.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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All that for a 25gp scroll.Hard to do in deeper darkness. Thus why buying scrolls of daylight really are about as much use.
That's true. However, Deeper Darkness probably has an emanation-shaped area of effect, so is blocked by walls (it's essentially rays of anti-light). Obscuring Mist on the other hand would spread around corners, and has a decent area of effect. It's not ideal but it's something at least.
When you get a few more spell slots to spare using one to properly memorize the spell doesn't hurt.
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Grumbaki,
I commiserate with you on your experience. It is regrettable.
The replay rules are there for two reasons that I can fathom...
As others have stated, to prevent chronicle mining, and, covertly, to force-sell published product.
One is a good reason. The other is brown matter we put up with to play the best (not perfect!) game on the market.
Like most laws, IMO, the replay rules should be enforced wisely.
Sadly, in this Age of the Lawyer, that's a very hard thing to do.
While I am no lawyer, it makes me wonder, rhetorically, if the rule would withstand a legal test and undergo the detestable legislation via judiciary.
"Your Honor, my client, a paying consumer of their product, played this scenario one time at a convention and suffered a seizure [or any protected event] after the first encounter. He could not finish the scenario due to his health and was given a chronicle with 1 XP, 0 PA and minimal gold as he was loaded onto the ambulance stretcher. This is clearly discrimination based on his medical condition. Paizo has no mechanism in place for medical waiver of replay rules. We demand the right to replay, plus legal fees & monetary damages for grief sustained by this unfortunate incident."
Then you have people feigning illness in order to get replays. It's an ugly business, I tell you!
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Grumbaki,
I commiserate with you on your experience. It is regrettable.The replay rules are there for two reasons that I can fathom...
As others have stated, to prevent chronicle mining, and, covertly, to force-sell published product.
One is a good reason. The other is brown matter we put up with to play the best (not perfect!) game on the market.Like most laws, IMO, the replay rules should be enforced wisely.
Sadly, in this Age of the Lawyer, that's a very hard thing to do.While I am no lawyer, it makes me wonder, rhetorically, if the rule would withstand a legal test and undergo the detestable legislation via judiciary.
"Your Honor, my client, a paying consumer of their product, played this scenario one time at a convention and suffered a seizure [or any protected event] after the first encounter. He could not finish the scenario due to his health and was given a chronicle with 1 XP, 0 PA and minimal gold as he was loaded onto the ambulance stretcher. This is clearly discrimination based on his medical condition. Paizo has no mechanism in place for medical waiver of replay rules. We demand the right to replay, plus legal fees & monetary damages for grief sustained by this unfortunate incident."
Then you have people feigning illness in order to get replays. It's an ugly business, I tell you!
Makes me think of a time that a player of mine quitting after disagreeing with how I handled the first encounter. It put me in a pickle because the table only had three players to begin with and was using an NPC.
So I ended up breaking a couple "PFS Rules" that day so that my players didn't waste their trip. Used a second pregen to fill the slot was one for sure (I don't really know if I broke another).
I later told my Venture-Captain what had happened and asked whether or not I should report her 1/3 credit. He said what I thought to be a good call and basically told me to let it go, no need angering an angry person even more.
If a player had a seizure at my table even half way through I'd give them the option of taking the Chronicle (with the offer to receive whatever credit the rest of the team got), or to not do so and have another shot at it at a later time.
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If a player had a seizure at my table even half way through I'd give them the option of taking the Chronicle (with the offer to receive whatever credit the rest of the team got), or to not do so and have another shot at it at a later time.
If I had a player who had a serious health issue at my table my first priority would be making sure that the player got the medical attention they needed, and to do whatever I could to make them comfortable/stable until said medical attention arrived, and not worry about the chronicle/scenario, making sure that everyone got the proper chronicle credit.
If there was grousing about it, I'd put it under the basic rule that the Society operates under, and not be a jerk about it. The person requiring medical attention may end up needing to cover ambulance or hospital bills -- no need to rub salt in that wound.
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If you have an issue that you feel warrants an exception you're welcome to try and acquire said exception. Ask your VA, or VO or whatever if it's okay to have the exception and they will progress it up until it's high enough that they can say yes or no to the request.
You could also try emailing Tonya yourself or PM her on here and sharing your plight.
Also you can post on the forums for a request, leadership is actually quite good at responding to things. Though I do recommend against this since it would be best handled in a more private method.
This method is currently in place, and allows the prevention of 1000 fraudulently obtained replays and also allows the 1 justly earned to happen.
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If a player had a seizure at my table even half way through I'd give them the option of taking the Chronicle (with the offer to receive whatever credit the rest of the team got), or to not do so and have another shot at it at a later time.If I had a player who had a serious health issue at my table my first priority would be making sure that the player got the medical attention they needed, and to do whatever I could to make them comfortable/stable until said medical attention arrived, and not worry about the chronicle/scenario, making sure that everyone got the proper chronicle credit.
If there was grousing about it, I'd put it under the basic rule that the Society operates under, and not be a jerk about it. The person requiring medical attention may end up needing to cover ambulance or hospital bills -- no need to rub salt in that wound.
XD
Oh no! This is of course after the all of that has passed over! I couldn't imagine trying to handle this during their medical emergency. I'm sitting here chuckling and sobbing at the same time because the imagery is hilarious, but also very wrong and TOTALLY NOT FUNNY!
Thanks for the conflict of emotions!
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XD
Oh no! This is of course after the all of that has passed over! I couldn't imagine trying to handle this during their medical emergency. I'm sitting here chuckling and sobbing at the same time because the imagery is hilarious, but also very wrong and TOTALLY NOT FUNNY!
Thanks for the conflict of emotions!
Sorry about the emotional damage... but I have seen GMs who have taken the approach jokingly referred to above "Well, you AREN'T AT THE TABLE, so YOU LOSE!" in other campaigns... which is why I greatly prefer PFS...
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That just feels wrong in general. No matter how much we look at it this is still a game. And games are supposed to be fun. Why be that guy who makes it not fun?
Well, I may not agree with them, but my suggestion would be to not take it up with the guy/gal that makes such a... detached, call and instead just reach out to the peeps Thomas mentioned.
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To get this thread back on track: The thing is, sometimes there are just crap GMs out there and they can ruin scenarios. For a while there was this one guy at our local shop. He was the worst. He GMed icebound outpost for us. He had remembered 'having an easy time with the scenario' (most likely because his characters weren't characters but just power game builds with no thoughts into the actual 'character') and just had us fight all three fights in the scenario at once in a massive ambush as soon as we entered the area. In the scenario the enemies are debuffed because of the ice and he removed that.
He also had all the enemy spellcasters start off fully buffed with round per level buffs (even though they had no idea we were coming) and had them last the entire fight (instead of the five rounds or whatever they should have lasted), and because of what he did it was 100% Impossible for us to get our second prestige point. (As in, it became impossible to earn it based on how he altered the scenario.). Enemies cast certain spells that they couldn't have cast, and when we pointed it out he just ignores us. Everyone almost died several times, and it was only because of liberal use of metagsming and a few lucky crite that we survived.
Dude got reported, but he didn't care and nothing came of it. So yeah, I feel your pain.
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Look, don't blame the GM. It's a tough place, do you follow the rules or break them for an exception, and most people wont feel like they are in a position of power to make that kind of exception.
Sometimes, it's the GM's fault something went poorly or got handled incorrectly.
As a frequent GM myself, I've had to second guess every player kill that happens in my game to make sure that I followed the scenario to the best of my capabilities (once I forgot about a certain tactic that made the scenario much tougher when not employing). I recheck every time my players don't earn that second prestige. I make mistakes.
I've had players complain to me about another GM who "modified" a scenario with the desires of making it more fun (allowed a player talk their way out of a fight) and then turned around and give them one less prestige as they only receive it for defeating said fight. I had to pull the GM aside and get their side of the story to tell him that if he's going to modify a success condition fight, he needs to modify the success condition as well. I also had to tell him that he should not be modifying the scenario outside of general dialogue. I understand that his minor modification was fun for the group at the time, so I'm all for it, but the players cannot be punished for what was his fault.
Being a GM is tougher than being a player, but it does not make them blameless. A GM is supposed to provide a pleasurable experience to the players. If it's going too easy (game is becoming dry and boring), fudge a roll or two to add some tension, make the NPCs stand out more to bring a better social element, do something that brings the players back into the game. Too difficult? Fudge a roll or two to ease the tension, provide an alternative victory condition that better suits the party's composition, do something that makes the players feel that I am not against them (because I am not).
I am not breaking rules for an "exception", I'm breaking rules for the spirit of a game: to have fun. It's not fun to go to a hospital for a medical emergency. It's not fun to then after get told that you received partial credit on a scenario because of it. Because that would mean that not only do you lose out on the rewards of the scenario, you will never be able to try again without having to burn a GM star.
Now, the medical emergency is more cut and dry as to what is pretty excusable. The interaction I mentioned earlier about a player who quit is not so easy. I cannot simply tell them that they receive a handful of gold and 1 experience and zero prestige as the player blames me for a mishandling of the rules when it comes to skill checks. So I decided to leave it my "superior" and pushed the question to my Venture Captain. He will make the final decision on the matter, and he made a fair one.
So just because the GM is not in a position of power to make an exception, they can and should push the bill to someone who is.