Okay instead of criticizing a flaw with the linearity of the pathfinder Society Ill ask if there are actual ways to earn and do more without being limited by scenarios packs and fixed rewards.
Like is there a way to craft useful magic items under the house rules of the Society campaign?
How about using a charisma skill to negotiate for larger rewards from quests? Craft and sell or use their own equipment indecently from the Society. Go searching for things in hidden places. Or pickpocket people.
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No.
Just no.
I've seen where this leads.
It's NEVER a pretty sight. Trust me.
EDIT: There are boons on certain scenarios that allow one to boost the amount of coin one earns from one's 'Day Job'. There are also vanities that can be purchased to allow alternate skills for 'Day Jobs'.
However, there are exceptionally restricted crafting rules for a reason... no one is going to become a millionaire being a Pathfinder agent, sorry. Any dreams of 'cornering a market' may be set aside for now.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Hey Chaos. The reasons for limits on scenario rewards and crafting are equity and balance.
Pathfinder has several main tracks for advancement. Although the main track for advancement is experience, money is a huge part of character power. That is why the campaign reins in anything that can upset the balance between characters of the same level.
If you are playing PFS, you just have to accept that you are part of a strictly regulated economy. The good news is though that here purchases matter and make a serious difference to your character.
I’ve seen first hand what happens when character wealth gets out of hand. I played a home game of Emerald Spire where we were all given way too much treasure, and then we discovered that we bowled over all the monsters. There was little to no challenge, and I found that I really hated being bored combat after meaningless combat. The PCs were one-shotting monsters. It was lame.
In a home game, a GM might be able to counterbalance with tougher and tougher monsters. But in PFS, most of the monsters are set by the adventure. For the good of the campaign as a whole, a regulated economy is necessary.
Yours sincerely,
Hmm
Oh well I guess close this thread then. Thanks for the quick response.
Society's campaign house rules just ruin everything. Someone has apparently done everything I can think of and the Society has banned it. makes me think of a South park episode where "Simpsons did it!"
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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You’re welcome for the quick response. I think that we will just have to agree to disagree about whether the Society’s campaign house rules ruin or enhance cooperative play.
I do think that you should try your ideas out as a GM in a longer run of something like an AP. You may find that players love the rain of wealth in earlier levels, but eventually they’ll start getting bored as the game goes on.
Part of the point of games is struggle and challenge. Without it, plots disappear and characters fail to grow.
Wishing you the best in finding the game that suits you,
Hmm
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Okay youre telling me the Pathfinder Society uses a Communist economy system rather than Free Market?
That explains so much.
You might have intended that as an accusation, but there's a nugget of truth in it actually.
The thing to understand about PFS is that it aims to be a big, big, big campaign. If I go on holiday to Germany, I can bring my binder and sit down to play with those people, because they use the same rules as I do.
When deciding which of two games to sign up for, I don't have to worry that GM A gives less treasure than GM B, because the scenario ensures I get a fair deal either way.
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Apart from that, there is actually a scale for rewards in adventures. If all you do is show up and fail miserably, you don't get a lot of treasure. You have to succeed at all the encounters to get the whole treasure.
And there's also secondary prestige: this is not a reward you get automatically; it's generally the reward for really trying to help out the Society, by making new allies, protecting its reputation, and doing interesting discoveries. It's often stuff that wasn't in the mission briefing; it's the reward for really good employees.
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The situation you are talking about, Chaosticket, gets very boring very quickly. The characters end up over-powerful and everyone ends up having less fun.
The problem as I see it, you are conflating gold with reward. Gold is worthless. It is simply an in-game system for upgrading your character. It follows a formula that provides everyone roughly equal access to gear. That's it. Aside from that, it is utterly useless.
The reward, on the other hand, is a completely out-of-game system that you get for having a well-built character, or spending time with friends, or completing a challenging encounter in a creative way. Any one of a thousand different rewards. And the more effort you put into it, the more reward you get out of it.
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Okay instead of criticizing a flaw with the linearity of the pathfinder Society Ill ask if there are actual ways to earn and do more without being limited by scenarios packs and fixed rewards.
Like is there a way to craft useful magic items under the house rules of the Society campaign?
How about using a charisma skill to negotiate for larger rewards from quests? Craft and sell or use their own equipment indecently from the Society. Go searching for things in hidden places. Or pickpocket people.
Sorry, Chaos, but no.
PFS is specifically and explicitly designed to avoid exactly these kinds of moneymaking attempts.
This is highly unlikely to change, for all the reasons already listed.
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I love that when I go to a PFS game with new players, that I'm not stuck with some players who have a "Monty Haul" GM and they all have way more wealth and items than me. None of them have abilities that I can't access because my GM said no but theirs said yes. That's the whole point of PFS.
As for crafting, it's actually because we don't track time between games, and very few people want to add layers of bookkeeping to the campaign.
I've played PFS for 7 years, and I've met some awesome GMs and players. Some of them are in my home campaign now, and I allow crafting and non-standard races and so on, since it's not PFS. I know it can be hard to start, but PFS is a great way to meet players and "test drive" them, so to speak. You can find several players who all have the same outlook and goals, and the same availability and schedule, and put them together for a home game. (If I had the time, I'd have probably three home campaigns, with different styles and house rules and different player groups. PFS has given me too many players to choose from!)
Best of luck.
Well all that you tell me is that the Pathfinder Society is basically made redundant compared to video games.
Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Icewind dale 1 and 2, Temple of Elemental Evil, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Elder Scrolls 5 or really any fantasy MMORPG.
I tried getting into tabletop RPGs 2 years ago to see something different from a videogame. The Society uses extra rule sto make it more like a videogame than and is a just a downgrade to the ideal of Pathfinder being an open Roleplaying world. You make a choice and it has consequences, not prepared scenarios.
Because of that I play even more videogames now as my only choice is hoping the Society will stop emulating a videogame. I dont have to wait a week to put a Final Fantasy game disc in.
Have videogames advanced enough to make traditional RPGs obsolete?
PS still waiting on this thread to close. Im already to the stage were I bemoan that lack of freedom.
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"Fledgeling, I've been through many missions for the Society. It took a bit of work and even picking up a farm on the side, but I managed to get enough stashed away to get a set of no-frills mithral plate. If this old bird can do it, you can too, if you're not a complete lazy good-for-nothing. Th' only folks that worry about gaining coin quickly are those that are destined to a bad end."
Silent Image alone allows a ton of creative things that you can’t pull off in a game. Those games don’t have the same social element. Pathfinder Society has much better character customization, too.
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Well all that you tell me is that the Pathfinder Society is basically made redundant compared to video games.
I tried getting into tabletop RPGs 2 years ago to see something different from a videogame. The Society uses extra rule sto make it more like a videogame than and is a just a downgrade to the ideal of Pathfinder being an open Roleplaying world. You make a choice and it has consequences, not prepared scenarios.
Because of that I play even more videogames now as my only choice is hoping the Society will stop emulating a videogame. I dont have to wait a week to put a Final Fantasy game disc in.
Well, it sounds like you've decided that PFS isn't for you, and that's ok. People change. What works for them at one point in their life isn't what works at another point. If you prefer videogames to PFS, that's fine. There's room enough for all kinds of gamers in the world.
I wish you all happiness in your future endeavors.
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Once you post to a board, it's not just "your" comment any more, it's out there. Whether the OP likes the responses or not.
On a more practical note, I don't think it's a good idea that someone claiming that PFS is "redundant to video games" gets the last word just by asking for a thread to close.
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Actually what Chaos wants is already a thing, it's covered by the day Job mechanic.
Craft items and sell for more money... Even get involved in a thieve's guild and sleight of hand to pickpocket for the extra cash.
Or use a variety of skills to run a successful caravan.
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Much like a wedding or a funeral its really about the folks in the audience and not the ones on stage...
Funeral yes, wedding is more about the folks behind the scene supplying conference and catering services at an inflated rate to people willing to be taken advantage of.
That aside, the sentiment is right, leaving out unquestioned the statement that PFS is devoid of choice and meaning because you can’t have table variation isn’t something we want to leave unresponded too. PFS is one flavour of Pathfinder with unique oppotunities and constraints.
The constraints are what are being railed against, “no table variation” which I’m not sure we acknowledge as societyt members view as a pro a con, or just a necessity of the massively multiplayer format. To allow a players power level to be boxed into known buckets to allow for scenario design, and allow a player to sit down at any table globally and play in a shared campaign.
More over the key feature is global consequences, with the reporting conditions accumulating to impact the direction of the story, or huge multitable specials which your home game can’t do. Sure in your home game you might cause the Eye of Abendengo to spin backwards and resurrect Arodan, but nobody else cares, but we collectively released a god from its prison, and raided a fallen sky citadel in the world wound, and we did that as a global play base in a way that we can fist bump at GenCon and say “I was there.”
There is some consquences, like the scenarios can have a “on the rails” feel at time, but to the original point, more effort can have more effect. Play the right Faction in the Right scenario and you get a different outcomes and boons. Focus on the exchange and you can rock the day job. There are all sorts of ways and trade offs that let you differentiate your experiance, and get ahead in different ways.
Even in scenarios you can fail to get the maximum reward if you don’t do well.
That was the long version, the short version is PFS is a different style of campaign, if it isn’t the campaign style for you, that is totally ok, Pathfinder is a very big tent game, and maybe a different style of home campaign is more your flavour.
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Okay instead of criticizing a flaw with the linearity of the pathfinder Society Ill ask if there are actual ways to earn and do more without being limited by scenarios packs and fixed rewards.
Like is there a way to craft useful magic items under the house rules of the Society campaign?
How about using a charisma skill to negotiate for larger rewards from quests? Craft and sell or use their own equipment indecently from the Society. Go searching for things in hidden places. Or pickpocket people.
I've noticed that a lot of your problem with organized play, are things that are frugally allowed, if at all, in most home games I have played. It simply ruins the wealth by level the game is based on (and increasingly makes it more and more difficult for a GM (or developer in the case of PFS) to write encounters that will be challenging, but not overly so.)
being able to subvert the standard wealth by level is not something that I think would make a good campaign choice for any game, let alone PFS.
I want to know if any of you think maximum official equipment should be allowed at the maximum official character level? Basically should you have +10 gear at level 20?
High level items costs hundreds of thousands of gold so you end up with millions worth.
The following quest about a fact. Does the Pathfinder Society allow +10 equipment?
Now those questions are relevent to low and high tier gameplay. When Cthulu is a high challenge rating boss I think of these things.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I want to know if any of you think maximum official equipment should be allowed at the maximum official character level? Basically should you have +10 gear at level 20?
High level items costs hundreds of thousands of gold so you end up with millions worth.
The following quest about a fact. Does the Pathfinder Society allow +10 equipment?
Sure, if you have enough fame and money nothing is stopping you.
EDIT: Guide to organized play page 20 shows you how much fame you need, for most weapons 72 fame should be enough, that might exclude some of the really expensive weapon materials.
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Well by level 20, all your equipment won't be +10, because Wealth by Level from the CRB doesn't suggest that much. But you can get close.
PRD indicates that 20th level Wealth by Level should be 880,000gp.
+10 Armor is 100,000gp
+10 Shield is 100,000gp
+10 Weapon is 200,000gp
+5 Ring of Protection is 25,000gp
+5 Amulet of Natural Armor is 25,000gp
+5 Cloak of Resistance is 12,500gp
+6/+6/+6 Stat Item is 77,000gp x 2 if you get both items.
This all equals 716,500gp, plus you will have a bunch of other cool items like Robe of the Archmage or Ioun Stones and all the consumables you purchased to get to 20th level cost a bunch too. Scrolls of Breath of Life or Talismans of Lifes Breath or First Aid Gloves.
My level 20 Grippli Ninja has the following Gear (I haven't upgraded him for Race for the Runecarved Key at level 19.2 yet):
Female grippli ninja (bandit) 17/ranger (trapper) 2 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 149, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 13, 71, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Magic 65)
NG Small humanoid (grippli)
Init +15; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +33
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Defense
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AC 43, touch 25, flat-footed 34 (+9 armor, +4 deflection, +8 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 insight, +3 natural, +6 shield, +1 size)
hp 212 (19 HD; 17d8+2d10+112)
Fort +19, Ref +30, Will +11; +4 morale bonus vs. charm and fear
Defensive Abilities improved evasion
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Offense
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Speed 60 ft., climb 40 ft.
Melee +1 anchoring ghost touch net +27/+27/+27/+22/+17 (entangle) or
+5 agile exhausting ghost touch mithral wakizashi +31/+31/+31/+26/+21 (1d4+27/15-20) or
mwk cold iron wakizashi +27/+27/+27/+22/+17 (1d4+12/15-20)
Ranged darkwood light crossbow +31/+31/+31 (1d6+4/19-20)
Special Attacks combat style (Sarenrae), favored enemy (humans +2), fearsome strike, sneak attack +9d6
Ninja Spell-Like Abilities (CL 17th; concentration +19)
—invisible blade[UC]
—ventriloquism[UC]
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Statistics
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Str 10, Dex 30, Con 20, Int 16, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +14; CMB +26 (+28 steal); CMD 40 (42 vs. steal)
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Agile Tongue[ARG], Crippling Critical[APG], Critical Focus, Extra Rogue Talent[APG], Flaying Critical, Improved Critical (wakizashi), Improved Initiative, Improved Steal[APG], Piranha Strike, Skill Focus (Perception), Weapon Finesse
Traits osirionologist (osirion), secrets of the sphinx
Skills Acrobatics +36 (+48 to jump), Appraise +8, Bluff +27 (+29 to feint), Climb +38, Diplomacy +27, Disable Device +34, Disguise +15, Escape Artist +17, Fly +12, Handle Animal +10, Heal +5, Intimidate +10, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +8, Knowledge (engineering) +9, Knowledge (history) +9, Knowledge (local) +8, Knowledge (planes) +5, Linguistics +23, Perception +33, Perform (sing) +10, Ride +9, Sense Motive +5, Sleight of Hand +17 (+22 to conceal weapons), Spellcraft +26, Stealth +39 (+43 in marshes and forested areas.), Survival +5, Swim +4, Use Magic Device +27
Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Ancient Osiriani, Azlanti, Boggard, Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Giant, Grippli, Hallit, Infernal, Jistka, Osiriani, Shadowtongue, Sylvan, Tekritanin, Thassilonian, Tien, Undercommon
SQ ambush, camouflage, glider[ARG], ki pool (10 points), light steps, ninja tricks (acrobatic master[UC], combat swipe[APG], evasion[UC], improved evasion, invisible blade[UC], sacred sneak attack, trap spotter, vanishing trick[UC], ventriloquism[UC]), no trace +5, poison use, track +1, trapfinding +1, wild empathy
Combat Gear cold iron crossbow bolts (50), oil of bless weapon, potion of gaseous form, potion of protection from evil, potion of remove blindness/deafness, scroll of breath of life, scroll of mass (x2) heal, scroll of restoration (x5), scroll of teleport, unfettered shirt[UE], wand of cure light wounds (14 charges), wayfinder, ebon, acid (2), air crystal (2), alchemical grease[APG] (2), alkali flask[APG] (2), antiplague[APG], antitoxin, bottled lightning[UE], burst jar[UE] (2), holy water (6), liquid ice[APG] (2), smelling salts[APG] (2), soul stimulant[UE], twitch tonic[UE], vermin repellent[UE]; Other Gear celestial armor, +5 mithral buckler, +1 anchoring ghost touch net, +5 agile exhausting ghost touch mithral wakizashi[UC], darkwood light crossbow, mwk cold iron wakizashi[UC], amulet of natural armor +3, belt of physical might +6 (Dex, Con), circlet of persuasion, clear spindle ioun stone, cloak of resistance +5, cracked incandescent blue sphere ioun stone, crimson sphere ioun stone, daredevil boots[ARG], dusty rose prism ioun stone, eldritch egress, eyes of the eagle, first aid gloves, handy haversack, headband of ninjitsu[UE], manual of quickness of action +4, pale blue rhomboid ioun stone, ring of climbing (improved), ring of protection +4, slayer's robe, stone of good luck (luckstone), stubborn nail[UE], vermillion rhomboid ioun stone, masterwork thieves' tools, 13,177 gp
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Special Abilities
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Acrobatic Master (Su) As a swift action, a ninja with this trick can focus her ki to grant her a +20 bonus on one Acrobatics check of her choice made before the start of her next turn. Using this ability expends 1 ki point from her ki pool.
Agile Maneuvers Use DEX instead of STR for CMB
Agile Tongue Your long pink tongue is capable of manipulating small items and even stealing objects.
Ambush (Ex) When able to act in the suprise round, can take a move, standard, and swift action.
Camouflage +4 Stealth in marshes and forested areas.
Climb (40 feet) You have a Climb speed.
Crippling Critical (DC 24) Critical Hits halves target's speed for 1 minute (Fort part).
Critical Focus +4 to confirm critical hits.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only).
Favored Enemy (Humans +2) (Ex) +2 to rolls vs. humans foes.
Fearsome Strike (2 rounds, 2/day) (Ex) Critical with sneak attack frightens target for 2 rounds.
Flaying Critical When crit a foe, their natural armor bonus takes a cumulative -1 penalty for the battle.
Glider Halve falling distance, may move horizontally during fall half of vertical distance fallen.
Improved Evasion (Ex) If succeed on Reflex save for half dam, take none instead. Failure deals half dam.
Improved Steal You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when stealing.
Invisible Blade (Su) Whenever a ninja uses the vanishing trick ninja trick, she is treated as if she were under the effects of greater invisibility. The ninja must have the vanishing trick ninja trick before selecting this ninja trick.
Ki Pool (10/day) (Su) You have a ki pool equal to 1/2 your monk level + your Charisma modifier.
Light Steps (Ex) When moving up to twice your normal movement, you may ignore difficult terrain and can move over any surface.
No Trace +5 (Ex) Survival DCs to track you are at +5, gain +5 to Stealth when you are stationary and not acting.
Piranha Strike -4/+8 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage with light weapons.
Poison Use You do not risk poisoning yourself accidentally while poisoning a weapon.
Sacred Sneak Attack (Su) Sneak attack dam vs. undead/evil outsider is good-aligned for overcoming DR.
Sneak Attack +9d6 Attacks deal extra dam if flank foe or if foe is flat-footed.
Track +1 Add the listed bonus to survival checks made to track.
Trap Spotter (Ex) Whenever you come within 10' of a trap, the GM secretly rolls for you to find it.
Trapfinding +1 Gain a bonus to find or disable traps, including magical ones.
Vanishing Trick (Su) As a swift action, the ninja can disappear for 1 round per level. This ability functions as invisibility. Using this ability uses up 1 ki point.
Ventriloquism (17 minutes) (Su) As a swift action, the ninja can throw her voice as if using the spell ventriloquism. She can use this ability for 1 minute per ninja level. Each use of this ability uses up 1 ki point.
Wild Empathy +4 (Ex) Improve the attitude of an animal, as if using Diplomacy.
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Inc.®, and are used under license.
Enjoy.
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+5 ring of protection should be 50k.
+5 Cloak of Resistance should be 25k.
+6 stat item is 36k, and second one adds 54k, with the third adding 54k, for a total of 144k.This is 181.5 k more than your post.
You are correct. I was looking at the cost rather than price. Which makes it a lot less likely to have the highest in everything as I had initially indicated.
Okay using those as examples its planned to have +1 of each tier every 2 levels. So is it possible to have +1 equipment by level 2, +2 gear by level 4, and so on?
So denying the ability to ask to negotiate a 10% pay raise when you are going to be paying about 200,000g for a sword by level 18-20 is perplexing. Its is even more counterproductive if it makes it impossible to afford regular small purchases like staying at an Inn or buying food.
200,000g per +10 weapon
100,000g per +10 armor piece
144,000g Belt of Physical Perfection +6
36,000 headband of Wisdom +6
body
chest
eyes
feet
hand
neck
shoulders
wrists
as well as potions, wands, and other miscellaneous items. Though to be fair not every slot has a 100,000g+ item.
Really the Pathfinder Society income levels are if anything too low.
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Having to make do with a +9 sword probably isn't going to kill you.
And I don't think anyone plays PFS to level 20 anyway.
Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Pullman
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Hello, I have read a couple of the thread's you've started. I understand you dislike certain aspects of the Organized Play System, when I first started I too disliked many aspects of the Organized Play System. I don't believe its feasible to make the changes you'd like while maintaining the balance of the system and health of the player base.
Near the end of the AP we took stock of our magical equipment and the fighter had roughly 5 times the wealth by level, cleric had roughly 2 times the wealth, and I had 3 times the wealth by level that was expected. The final book was overall unsatisfying because the AP couldn't not flex far enough to challenge us without breaking the story line.
I mention this because if we allow crafting in PFS the older scenarios will be unable to bend far enough to allow them to challenge us without the GM taking great liberties with the rules as written. We already have the problem of many Season 0 to Season 3 scenarios failing to challenge groups consisting of many of the newer classes. I occasionally tell people some of what I felt were cool fights some of my characters took part in and they respond with how their Earth Kinetesist did their super Kamehameha Maximized Empowered Metal Composite blast and one shot it from full health to true dead and how boring of a scenario it was.
If we allow players to negotiate with the society for higher wages we run into a large amount of table variation. Lenient GMs will allow for more generous payments and stricter GMs for less pay. A group of players that has someone that is consistently increasing the pay received is significantly more advantaged then a group of players that doesn't have access to that person. We might also see an increase in the formation of cliques and rigid group structures to game the system.
I encourage you to speak with your fellow players and see if you can convince them to try out a homebrew or AP where the rules are more free form. If subtle hints aren't working, I suggest talking to a person you'd like to see run a campaign for you and suggest they do so.
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It's not likely to have a +2 weapon by level 4, because you don't have the required fame until somewhere in level 5.
However, a fun spreadsheet of assumed wealth by level from the CRB, and actual PFS Wealth by Level shows on average about 10% to 15% more wealth in PFS. The WBL in the CRB assumes 10% to 15% of the WBL will be spent on consumables, which means PFS pays for consumables.
Additionally, another aspect of PFS that makes it more powerful, is you can buy whatever you want and aren't limited to what you find. So you can work magic purchases into your character build plan.
Additionally, there are certain factions where if you complete certain tasks you can get discounts on some purchases. Also if you invest heavily into a craft, performance, or profession skill you can get more gold each scenario by making a day job check. It isn't 10%, but it's something.
What table top RPGs are not built for, is for the GM to adjudicate a social roll before every purchase to see if you get it cheaper or sell for more. Because then you spend all your time in the market instead of adventuring. They are not built for grinding, because you really can't spend extra time in an RPG.
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The OP has request this thread to be be locked. Until the thread is locked we can help the OP by not posting. It is obvious Chaos does not understand the organized play model.
Nothing we say will have any impact.
To the OP, best of luck in finding a gaming group to play how you would like.
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The OP has request this thread to be locked.
Since then, the OP has continued to post new opinions and questions in this thread.
Until the thread is locked we can help the OP by not posting. It is obvious Chaos does not understand the organized play model.
Maybe someone needs to explain it better?
PFS is a set of compromises designed to create a level playing field - preset difficulty, constrained wealth, restricted character options, etc. Few are going to be entirely happy with the rules chosen, but changing them the way you'd like would cause problems for other people. That isn't going to happen. You can go along with the compromise and try to have a good time, or keep searching for an existing group that can accommodate you, or start your own group.
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I don't think that's the problem.
Maybe someone needs to explain it better?
I agree. Its been explained six ways to Sunday, and still no dice. Not sure how to explain it differently that will get the point across, that what he wants is generally bad for the game as a whole, not just PFS.
He wants to grind, like in a video game, so that he can face the challenges with more gear and xp/level-ups than what would normally be required for that particular dungeon. This is not really something table-top RPGs really accommodate within their rulesets or the way in which the game is cooperatively played for a set amount of time that the group can get together. You really don't grind a table-top RPG.
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If one were to take it to the 'MMO/videogame' level, it even rapidly becomes deleterious even for such platforms as they either have third-party folks attempting to 'farm up' in-game cash for RL money, or worse, have micro-monetized everything to the point where to be even half-way effective one must engage in RL micro-transactions.
That all adds up pretty fast.
Definitely don't want that sort of thing in PFS. It's already difficult enough for some people to get Boons, we don't need to raise the 'entry level' for the game even higher with some farcical fiscal foolishness.
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If one were to take it to the 'MMO/videogame' level, it even rapidly becomes deleterious even for such platforms as they either have third-party folks attempting to 'farm up' in-game cash for RL money, or worse, have micro-monetized everything to the point where to be even half-way effective one must engage in RL micro-transactions.
That all adds up pretty fast.
Definitely don't want that sort of thing in PFS. It's already difficult enough for some people to get Boons, we don't need to raise the 'entry level' for the game even higher with some farcical fiscal foolishness.
Generally for single-player games like Fallout 3 or Skyrim, one could spend time just running around grinding by picking pockets and sneaking around the various towns, or like my story in the thread that got moved to a different forum, of my buddy and I that took turns in Oblivion with the same character taking all the books from the various guilds we'd become members of (not stealing because we were members) and walking uber-slowly to the merchant to sell all the books. Between 4 or 5 guilds, and 9 hours later, we had like 2 million gold. We used it to kit ourselves with the best magic armor, weapons, and tons of potions.
9 hours of game play, that was fun for us more because we were doing it together and laughing about the ridiculousness of it all, than because we now could dominate most challenges we ran into. I get that for some, that domination is what's fun and they tolerate the grind to purposely get to that point. YMMV.
The point is, that you don't really have an extra 9 hours to 'grind' in a table top RPG. I've played merchant campaigns where we negotiated prices, trade routes, etc. Those were fun, but the players all bought into the process the GM was selling. I've played in campaigns where every major purchase was contested with a social roll to reduce the cost of an item or raise the sale price of an item being sold. And sometimes we'd spend entire 4 to 6 hour sessions divvying up treasure and then buying/selling our gear. That's 4 to 6 hours we weren't adventuring. We had fun, because my home group is a group of really close friends that are more about spending time together than the game necessarily (although we all really enjoy the game too). But I think in subsequent campaigns we did away with doing that, because we'd rather enjoy our time together engaging with the adventure instead of the marketplace.
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Tallow,
There are games that effectively encourage people to monetize their time by doing that grind, then 'selling' that virtual currency to others.
Highly illegal and ethically dubious under most conditions, it then turns into 'those who can afford the time to farm for RL cash' and 'those who can afford the fee to pay for the in-game currency'.
We already have enough issues with concerns over Boon sales, I shudder to think of what would happen if someone were able to say, sell neatly packaged bundles of 50,000 gold to a new PFS player for 'just a small fee'.
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Tallow,There are games that effectively encourage people to monetize their time by doing that grind, then 'selling' that virtual currency to others.
Highly illegal and ethically dubious under most conditions, it then turns into 'those who can afford the time to farm for RL cash' and 'those who can afford the fee to pay for the in-game currency'.
We already have enough issues with concerns over Boon sales, I shudder to think of what would happen if someone were able to say, sell neatly packaged bundles of 50,000 gold to a new PFS player for 'just a small fee'.
Oh, certainly the MMO construct of more time = RL money has absolutely zero business being in an organized play table-top RPG environment.
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You can go along with the compromise and try to have a good time, or keep searching for an existing group that can accommodate you, or start your own group.
Bolded that last part. No one owes you the kind of game you want. Asking volunteers to provide you with exactly what you want and complaining when they fail is significantly easier than owning your enjoyment and working to make it happen. But it sure is more miserable.
As the thread title says: More Effort Equals More Reward.
@Coraith
This is for you. In those situations you mentioned I see the excess usage of ideas to "break" games. Long before it reached the points mentioned things should have been done. If you have unlimited funds youve basically unlocked cheat code in a game for "unlimited money".
What do you think is fair, getting a 40% increase in rewards or 400% increase?
There is no gray area in the rules and people that suggest this heavy handed approach in this thread dont make one. Its basically just repetition of "any changes will break the campaign".
Its already broken if the majority dictate terms as it the decision was unanimous. I even see a recent post once again saying to quit the campaign since I criticize its flaws.