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While the proposal dosen’t modify the replay rules directly it does modify how the 1e scenarios can be played and widens the potential player base and has the intent to extend the playable life span of 1e scenarios.
I though about creating a new thread, but felt it also falls within this thread’s range of discussions.
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Pathfinder was originally the game for people who didn't want to adopt the New Edition. I truly believe many, if not most, of these players will eventually make their way over to the new edition if you let them move at their own pace. Telling them "You've run out of content," or "You can only play once a month when scenarios line up" wilt upset and frustrate them. You don't want to alienate your long term players. You want them to feel welcome. You want them to have the ability to keep playing their game and keep the invitation open to join the new one.
I think the problem is the difference between what established players want out of the campaigns and what new players will want. Generally speaking, once 2E rolls out, new players will not be interested in PFS1/1E. So, it will have to survive on the backs of the existing players. One thing we do not know about our community is the turnover rate. How many players are long-term (say more than two years?) and how many are "new" (less than two years?).
Generally speaking, OP is not growing. Yes, we get new players, but its at a rate less than that of those who stop playing or have significantly reduced their play rate. So, as we progress, the number of people interested in playing 1E/PFS1 will dwindle. Many areas already struggle to schedule their events so any reduction in availability of players and GMs might be untenable. IMO, that more than anything else is what will eventually kill PFS1 aside from anything else we do. So, saying the campaign will die after a couple, three years is not necessarily an issue of desire, but a victim of circumstance.
Lest we forget, Paizo is still a company in the business of selling product. It would make sense that they would not go too far out of their way to incentify their customers to continue playing a system they are not producing any more content for and therefore generates little to no revenue. Now, certainly they are not going to say that because too many people will start shouting things like "cash grab," but lets all be realistic. 2E IS about money as much as it is reworking a "tired" system with a new ruleset.
My difficulty with replay is that playing with players that have already played/read the adventure is not a fun experience. There are some players that can handle it but unfortunately most cannot. I have had the same experience playing in Core. The idea of Core play is to attract new players and to limit the complexity of play but in practice it is the experienced players who have played all the available scenarios who choose to play in core as an alternative to not playing.
This is generally not a fun experience either.
Personally I think that replay should be limited to randomized Dungeon crawls evergreens (which are fantastic btw). Allowing some replay options for seasoned GMs is ok too.
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OP is not growing? Do we have statistics on that?
Now I may be weird because I play in two booming regions — Minnesota and Online. But it still seems like Organized Play has grown quite a bit since I’ve started.
Hmm
Not to thread jack this but we've seen local play drop off since 5e. A bunch of players moved to AL and haven't come back. One store tha0t used to have 3 tables each week is down to one.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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At the store I organize for, Adventure League died and the person who organized it joined our regular players for PFS.
I imagine some of this is variance is regional. I also recognize that there are a lot of other factors involved including social groupings of friends, where the games are hosted, and how well the host does in making it a fun and friendly experience.
It would be nice to know how the overall campaign is doing.
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From the other thread:
Yes, I would like to see us move forward as well. Let’s find our common ground, and figure this out without rancor or accusations.
I think there are actually several points on which there is broad agreement, though not total unanimity.
1) There are no serious requests for unlimited replay. My personal preference is for one additional replay. I think it would be the easiest scheme to implement.
2) Any replay scheme would be limited in time. It would not begin until after PFS2 begins, and it would last for only 2-4 years. It would be made very clear that such a replay scheme is for the PFS1 to PFS2 transition period only and as such would not be applicable to PFS2 either during or after the transition period.
3) Since boon-fishing is a major concern, I'd be fine with people earning generic chronicle sheets listing only XP, prestige, and gold when they use their one free additional replay for a scenario.
I'm curious as to how many folks do think these are reasonable ideas and the basis for future, productive discussions on this topic.
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We need to realize that any policy expanding the existing Replay opportunities in 1e will be pushed into 2E.
For example: If we decide that persons named Bob will be able to replay scenarios that are Odd numbered (like Silent Tide 1-01) - there will be the assumption that "Odd Bob Replays" will be allowed in 2nd Edition after it releases.
Any expansion of replay opportunities allowed in 1e before the release of 2E are going to be ASSUMED to be part of 2E when it does release.
And any expansion of Replay allowed AFTER the release will be assumed to apply to 2E if it is anounced before.
This is human nature. Or at least GAMER nature. "Give an inch..." and we'll push it to the last micron of what is allowed - and anything not prohibited will be played as if it's allowed. Such is the nature of Gamers.
I totally disagree with this position and think it will be possible to lay out a clear, explicit, and limited replay scheme which is designed only for the PFS1 to PFS2 transition period.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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I’m happy that we’re moving the Limited Replay discussion to this thread, but am going to link back to my Summary of the Issues of Small Lodges Quality of Replay, & Ideas Going Forward. Why? I want to be able to refer to options.
PJ Rogers, thank you for listing our Common Ground! That was an excellent summation. To it I will add that we all have to find a way to make Organized Play survive this very long Playtest Transition. The long Playtest testing window is terrific for testing the Playtest, but really detrimental to the health of our Organized Play Lodges.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
SOME OF THE PROBLEMS WE HAVE LOOMING
1) Without new games, Geek Sudoku becomes harder, especially in smaller lodges.
2) Without old games, PF2 will be on a slow release, and most lodges won’t have enough to play unless they start really building up the Starfinder base. (Building a Starfinder base requires persistent introduction and offering of the game to build a clientele. You just have to keep offering it over, and over. But if it takes a while for the player base to warm up to it, it can be hard to build Starfinder up as a ‘bridge’ option, and some lodges want to concentrate on fantasy. The other issue that we face is that Starfinder does not have a huge back catalogue of games, since it’s only been out a year, and during much of that year, it was on a slow release.
3) The idea that we’re playing a ‘dead’ game is also an issue. I would love for us to avoid that terminology if we can. It’s not a dead game, it’s a campaign in transition. The story will continue under different rules. If we use that terminology around our players, we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot and they’ll start moving off to other organized play options. We are very much a living game — that’s why there’s going to be a second edition!
4) It’s going to be hard for most lodges of whatever size to have games of Playtest, Starfinder and 1e going on at the same time. For the players, changing characters and rulesets can be challenging. Even if you’re as large and active as Minnesota, you need a reason for the players to come back to the table.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
QUESTION OF THE DAY: WILL 1E REPLAY BE EXPECTED IN 2E?
I totally disagree with this position and think it will be possible to lay out a clear, explicit, and limited replay scheme which is designed only for the PFS1 to PFS2 transition period.
I’m with PJ Rogers here, and think that it’s very possible, especially if the replay is entitled “Transition Replay”. The key is that the OPC Leadership Team needs to make some decisions soon about how all this will work, and announce it clearly, not just in the boards, but in the Roleplaying Guild Guide.
The general public is assuming that "Judge Star Re-Plays" will be a thing in 2nd edition. The debate is not IF we get replays for "Stars" but rather to what extent (not so much IF - just HOW MUCH) our Stars will transfer over to the New Campaign. "Hay! I earned the RIGHT to a replay! And I find it INSULTING that you want to TAKE THAT AWAY!".
I suspect that there will be GM ‘Glyph’ replays in 2E, just like there are GM ‘Star’ replays in 1E. My expectation is that Glyph replays will only work in 2E, and Star replays will only work in 1E. However, my Star replays do nothing in Starfinder. In Starfinder, I only earned my first Nova a few weeks ago, and you better bet that I’m hoarding that replay option because it’s the only one I have available.
If we explain that Glyphs are for 2E, and Stars are for 1E, the replay question becomes clarified. I’m just hoping that it’s soon.
I had a big old rant a while back when this change was first announced, and it was announced that our Stars were not carrying over into the new Campaign. I’ve since gotten over it. My Stars will remain on my profile as a mark of acheivement. The one thing about them that I would like to see carry over into 2E was the bonus they gave my rerolls. But... If that has to go away in order for all of us to have clean break, so be it.
I’m also hoping that we figure out soon how limited replay will happen in 1E. I like the idea of replay with a Generic Chronicle Sheet once to prevent boon-farming, so long as ‘fresh players’ — those playing for the first time — are given precedence for seating over re-players. We still want this to be a game of discovery.
Hmm
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I totally disagree with this position and think it will be possible to lay out a clear, explicit, and limited replay scheme which is designed only for the PFS1 to PFS2 transition period.
I have to agree with nosig, as every loosening of replay has been used to call for more. You are absolutely correct that the rules must be very clear to combat that problem.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Agreed. But I think it’s possible to wordsmith this. I do think that the name we give for LIMITED TRANSITION REPLAY is important too. I don’t know what the final name for it should be, but I do know that’s important to call out that the replay is connected to the transition period.
Hmm
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I imagine a reasonable portion of 'replay for lewt' would go away if the unique boons/items on earlier sheets were opened up to 'any character the player has'.
I know I've played several scenarios where I've been at the end "SONUVA- I played the WRONG character for this!"
And I know that I am not alone in that regard. If unique items were bind-on-player (Ex: Averakan Arbiter, Oread) throughout, then there would be FAR less of that inferred *need* to 'farm the scenario'.
In that vein, the pressure of 'must play THIS scenario' would ease significantly, and it would also make 'generic' chronicles less "Well, I got 'something' and more "I don't have to worry about the special stuff, I already played this so I have it."
It's a thought, and feedback on it would be appreciated.
EDIT: When such things would be 'bind on player' if they had limited usages or rarity, that original rarity would apply. I don't think we need to see forty thousand intelligent items in the campaign all thinking "Bub?".
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Pink Dragon, you’re missing the most important ones on my list!
14. Explore, Cooperate, Report! The ability to have a team that works together and is mission oriented rather than one that stabs you in the back. The teamwork — that’s the number one thing that keeps pulling me back.
15. Strong & Visibile Story Goals. Each session, you accomplish a mission. That these missions build towards a greater society storyline is awesome, but your progress is visible.
16. International community. This is especially true of online play. When I oversaw Cosmic Captive, I had GMs from Austraila, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Singapore. At PaizoCon this year, I get to meet one of my Aussie players, who’s flying in. At PaizoCon last year, I get to sit at Netherlander Tineke Bolleman’s fantastic 5 star confirmation table and throw a frat party in House of Harmonious Wisdom.
17. Everyone wants to be there. They’re there to game, and they’re focused on the game. Home games tend to have players who tune out, or who are there only to be semi-social with friends. I don’t see that in Organized Play.
18. Shared Storylines means stories that you can share with friends — “Oh, how did you handle the Pie Fight in 3-14, the Unlife of Pie? I managed to stagger them with my cone of Ice Cream, and then my friend Zorg shouted, ‘You want a piece of this? Well, BITE ME!’”
19. Kick-Ass Writing. The scenarios have really different sorts of stories and more varieties in the kind of stories they tell then a home game might. Linda, John and Thursty are awesome and sometimes evil... But they challenge and surprise us.
20. A variety of the types of stories. In organized play, we go all over the world to different settings and have so many different sorts of stories. We don’t just kill people and take their stuff (though we do that too...) I really like the variety of what we get to do in a PFS campaign.
Hmm
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The evidence from past campaigns that allowed unlimited replay, is a preponderance of negative effects overall.Two things...
1) You keep saying this, but I haven't seen an example of it. I will fully admit, I am not a power gamer and know of most gaming systems let along the obscure ones. Could you please give an example of this that I can look up and see what happened?2) I am NOT asking for unlimited replay. Not at all. I think the best option is a "replay one time" option. You may see it as delaying the inevitable, and in some ways it is...but there are still many people who would love to replay a game or a set of games and enjoy it one more time. Hell, there are people in my area that have been playing so long, that some of the modules were so long ago it would be LIKE a new game, not a replay.
go check out almost any replay thread from the last 6 years, and somewhere in there you'll find someone posting all the reasons. I'm running out of energy to re-explain all the various real-life actual reasons that replay has destroyed campaigns in the past and are bad for organized play.
This is not a new argument.
I know I am really late to this, but I see this talked about in all the replay threads and having been involved in organized play since 1997, I can't really find a basis for this "real-life actual reasons that replay has destroyed campaigns in the past and are bad for organized play."
The major organized play campaigns I can think of and have been involved in:
Living City - Did not have any replay and in fact if you ran a scenario before you played it you could not play it.
Living Greyhawk - Same thing.
Both of those before PFS and AL were the most successful organized play campaigns ever. Unlimited replay didn't kill them, for Living City it was the conversion to 3rd edition being a cluster, followed by the success of LG, followed by Wizards pulling the plug in 2004 that killed it.
For Living Greyhawk, it was a straight WotC fiat decision that killed it without warning announced at a Gen Con keynote speech. I personally didn't play organized play for years because of how WotC handled the ending of Living Greyhawk. Its likely why Paizo is handling PFS1.0 ending the way they are. People, especially people like Erik Mona remember the crapfest that was 3.0 conversion of LC and the ending of LG.
The other contemporary campaigns, Living Death and Living Jungle, mostly, no replay either.
So now we get to 4th edition, here we have Living Forgotten Realms and Ashes of Athas, I can't really speak to the latter, so maybe this is the example people are talking about but Living Forgotten Realms ran until 2014 so when 5th edition launched. I didn't enjoy LFR but it had nothing to do with its expanded replay and much more to do with not liking 4th edition.
So is LFR the example we're using? If so there's way more going on here than simply expanded replay opportunity, heck, AL has much looser replay options than PFS and it seems to be doing well enough for itself.
In short, the problem has never been expanded replay that kills campaigns, its been other factors, any claim to the contrary has at best one data point unless I'm missing something major here, which I don't believe I am.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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Living City - Did not have any replay and in fact if you ran a scenario before you played it you could not play it.Living Greyhawk - Same thing.
Both of those before PFS and AL were the most successful organized play campaigns ever. Unlimited replay didn't kill them, for Living City it was the conversion to 3rd edition being a cluster, followed by the success of LG, followed by Wizards pulling the plug in 2004 that killed it....
So: The two most successful organized play campaigns ever didn't have any replay at all. That's two more datapoints against replay.
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So: The two most successful organized play campaigns ever didn't have any replay at all. That's two more datapoints against replay.
No, no it's not, just because successful campaigns didn't have replay it does not follow that a campaign with replay would be worse or less successful. Who is to say they wouldn't have been even more successful with replay.
I mean to accept the opposite would mean that PFS would be better if it had no GM credit, if you couldn't earn replay with credits, and if you ran a scenario you couldn't play it, afterall those are all features of LC and LG.
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My suggestion would be to go back and read some of the other threads where many of us have posted on why "replay" (yeah, even the limited amount we have now) is NOT good for the campaign. But I really don't expect to change your opinion.
There is a big difference between "Replay is not good for the campaign" and "Replay has killed other organized play campaigns." The former can have arguments for and against it, the latter is an appeal to some sort of empirical fact that, best I can tell, is made up.
So... yeah, there was no Replays in LG and LC, and both those campaigns ran LARGE followings and ran a long time. Has there been ANY campaign that has run for as large a following that has run as long that allowed Replays? I don't know of one - except maybe PFS. In a limited fashion.
As long? Not yet, but AL is entering its 4th year and is, it appears, more popular than PFS in many areas. It will likely last until WotC kills it with 6th edition (if such a thing happens, they've really slowed down the D&D production to the point where it may not happen for a decade.)
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Sorry - I watched as AL moved into my area ... and failed to gain the following PFS has. I would have a real problem finding a game of it in my area currently (it would be easier to find SFS) - so I guess I am not in one of the "many areas" you mention. I can find PFS 3 days a week.
Seems not but watching the play numbers at Origins, Gen Con, PAX Unplugged (now granted AL was the only official event in the program) AL is widely popular and likely more popular than PFS overall, this has many factors (brand recognition being a major one) but unlimited replay does not appear to be killing it.
But that's just comparing Wizard Wands - "my game is bigger than yours". PFS grew out of LG (and a little out of LC), PFS2 will be growing out of PFS. When we made the transition from LG we discussed what elements to retain and what parts to change. "Replay" was briefly tried and rejected.
If we're not talking about comparing Wizard Wands, what are we talking about. If the "kill a campaign" meant anything besides "make it have less players" then its a completely subjective assertion, namely that it negatively affected THAT person's play experience but how do we know it was a net negative and didn't enhance others play experiences?
"Replay" wasn't briefly tried and then rejected. It was tried in a particular fashion (once per faction) and then changed. It was rejected we wouldn't have, 1) evergreens and 2) GM Star Replays which have actually expanded over the years to a boon specific refresh to anyone can do it based on number of stars, the opportunities for replay in PFS are greater than they've ever been outside of year zero as you tell it.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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I mean to accept the opposite would mean that PFS would be better if it had no GM credit, if you couldn't earn replay with credits, and if you ran a scenario you couldn't play it, afterall those are all features of LC and LG.
Yeah, PFS added things on top of the old LG ways.
GM credit was added so at venues with a limited amount of players characters of people who GMmed more would be able to keep up with people who didn't run (as much), so they wouldn't be locked into GMming.
The ability to play after running was introduced so people would be more willing to run games and not be punished for stepping up. The assumption was that people willing to eat a scenario would be able to play without spoiling.
GM star replay was added as a reward for GMs and give them a chance to replay an adventure were the play experience was botched, like a severely unprepared or bad GM.
The new evergreens are special as they really don't have a story that can be spoiled and a choice of different encounters so it's unlikely you'll face the same enemies the second or third time.
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Or having to sit thru one of the players discussing the scenario with the Judge - BEFORE THE GAME STARTS. Thinking they are "being secretive" but "talking around" the exact make-up of what we'll be facing... sigh. Yeah.
Me: "Guys - I'd really like to just find out the story as we play it..."
Informed player "Heck, it's not like I told you the BBE is a Bard or anything"
Sigh.
This can happen no matter what. There are always jerks around who know more about a scenario/monster than they should or use knowledge their character wouldn't have...replay, GM, or just from talking to a friend.
GM: Make a Knowledge(religion) checkJerky Player: No need, I know what the monster is. It can poison with it's mouth and it has stench when you get close. They have a low Armor Class, so just use ranged weapons and we'll kill it super easy.
GM: How could you know that? You're only level 3.
Jerky Player: I encountered them before with another character (or) I read through the monster manual one night when I was bored (or) My friend told me to watch out for them, as his group was almost killed (or) It's obvious it's a XXX. Just look at the picture you gave us.
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I really urge people to go back and read all those old replay threads. There is a ton of actual good information on which campaigns had unlimited replay and why that replay was bad for those campaigns.
It really is pointless to continue arguing about the reasons many of us feel replay is bad until those threads have been gone over by respondants wanting replay.